NEW YORK: Wall Street’s main indexes fell on Thursday as investors resumed a shift out of big technology-related firms, while an unexpected rise in weekly jobless claims pointed to a fragile recovery in the labour market.

The Labour Department’s report showed initial claims for state unemployment benefits were 861,000 last week, compared with 848,000 in the prior week, partly due to potential claims related to the temporary closure of automobile plants due to a global semiconductor chip shortage.

Shares of Apple Inc, Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc, Tesla Inc and Alphabet Inc were down between 0.8% and 2.0%.

Walmart Inc slid 5.9% after the world’s largest retailer missed quarterly profit estimates and predicted fiscal 2022 net sales to rise in low single digits.

At 9:41 a.m. ET the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 267.75 points, or 0.85%, at 31,345.27, the S&P 500 was down 32.45 points, or 0.83%, at 3,898.88 and the Nasdaq Composite was down 153.32 points, or 1.10%, at 13,812.17.

Marriott International Inc slipped 1.9% after reporting a quarterly loss as the world’s largest hotel chain’s bookings declined due to pandemic-induced travel restrictions.—Reuters