US STOCKS-Futures fall ahead of jobless claims data as investors shift away from tech

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* Futures down: Dow 0.24%, S&P 0.41%, Nasdaq 0.78%

By Devik Jain and Shreyashi Sanyal
Feb 18 (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures fell on Thursday
as investors resumed a shift out of big technology firms ahead
of data that is expected to show a steady recovery in the labor
market.
The Labor Department's report at 8:30 a.m. ET is expected to
show that the number of Americans filing new applications for
unemployment benefits decreased to 765,000 last week as a drop
in COVID-19 cases allowed more businesses to reopen.
Wall Street's main indexes hit record highs at the beginning
of the week but gradually retreated following a rise in treasury
bond yields, which led to fears of higher inflation.
These concerns have spurred profit-taking from companies
with high valuations in the S&P 500 technology .SPLRCT and
communications services .SPLRCL sectors, that have led the
benchmark index .SPX gain 76% from its March 2020 lows.
Apple Inc AAPL.O , Microsoft Corp MSFT.O , Amazon.com Inc
AMZN.O , Alphabet Inc GOOGL.O and Facebook Inc FB.O , which
together account for about 22% of the weight of the S&P 500,
were down between 0.7% and 2.2%.
"A steady slow increase may not necessarily disrupt the
uptrend in equities but will likely force rotation from highly
priced stocks, typically in the tech sector, to more reasonably
priced cyclical ones, " said Hussein Sayed, chief market
strategist at FXTM.
Shares of Walmart Inc WMT.N and Marriott International
MAR.O fell about 2% after the companies reported quarterly
results. Fourth-quarter earnings season have been largely upbeat,
while investors eyed progress in countrywide vaccination efforts
and hopes of $1.9 trillion dollar stimulus package.
At 6:50 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis 1YMcv1 were down 77 points,
or 0.24%, S&P 500 e-minis EScv1 were down 16.25 points, or
0.41%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis NQcv1 were down 106.75 points,
or 0.78%.