By Kate Gibson, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — U.S. stocks fell Thursday, with Cyprus still an issue for investors and technology shares hit, a day after software company Oracle Corp. reported declining sales.
Oracle Corp. ORCL -9.27% fell after the business-software maker reported profit and sales below expectations.
Shares of KB Home KBH +3.20% climbed after the home builder reported a smaller-than-expected loss.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA -0.32% declined 54.38 points, or 0.4%, to 14,457.35. Cisco Systems Inc. CSCO -3.28% , International Business Machines Corp. IBM -1.46% and Intel Corp. INTC -0.76% led blue-chip declines, which extended to all but four of its 30 components.
The S&P 500 index SPX -0.33% shed 6 points, or 0.4%, to 1,552.71, with technology and materials weighing the heaviest among its 10 sectors, all of which were in the red.
The Nasdaq Composite COMP -0.57% fell 18.22 points, or 0.6%, to 3,235.96.
For every share rising nearly two fell on the New York Stock Exchange, where 64 million shares traded by 9:45 a.m. Eastern.
Composite volume came to 231 million.
“Stock-market volumes have been lackluster, setting some at-or-near record lows on days when equities look unstoppable. There’s the feeling that even though the $100 bill on the sidewalk looks real, you want to be very casual when you pick it up. Just in case it’s really a fake and your buddies are playing a joke on you,” Nicholas Colas, ConvergEx Group chief market strategist, wrote in emailed research.
Ahead of Wall Street’s open, U.S. stock-index futures were little changed as data showed continued improvement in the U.S. labor market.
Initial jobless claims climbed by 2,000 to a seasonally adjusted 336,000 last week, with the data slightly better than expected.
The European Central Bank said it would suspend aid for Cyprus banks if the country can’t reach a bailout deal by Monday.
Home prices gained 0.6% in January, and rose 6.5% from the year-ago period, the Federal Housing Finance Agency said Thursday.
