Investing.com -- U.S. stocks were falling on Thursday after earnings from Walt Disney and new data on inflation and the labor market.
At 10:28 ET (14:28 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 348 points or 1%, while the S&P 500 was down 0.5% and the NASDAQ Composite was down 0.1%.
Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) shares fell 8.6% after it reported Wednesday evening, saying subscribers to its streaming business fell in the quarter.
Growth in consumer prices slowed again in April from a year earlier. Evidence that inflation is cooling is encouraging the view that the Federal Reserve is going to pause on its interest rate hiking campaign in June after raising rates by a quarter of a percentage point last week.
Also encouraging that view: initial jobless claims came in slightly higher last week than expected, at 264,000 versus expectations for 245,000. And producer prices rose slightly less than expected in April, at 2.3% from last year versus expectations for 2.4%.
Stocks have risen this year as investors anticipate the Fed will start reversing course and cut rates during the second half of the year.
An outstanding issue is the resolution of the debt ceiling fight in Washington, where lawmakers are fighting over whether to attach spending cuts as a condition to raising the limit. Biden administration officials have warned that the government might run out of options to pay its obligations as early as June 1 if Congress fails to raise or suspend the limit.
Alphabet Inc. Class A (NASDAQ:GOOGL) shares rose 4.7% after Google showcased several artificial intelligence projects that it sees helping it compete in the fast-moving space against competition from Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and others.
Oil was falling. Crude Oil WTI Futures was down 1.5% to $71.42 a barrel, while Brent Oil Futures was down 1.5% to $75.33 a barrel. Gold Futures was flat at $2,024.