US STOCKS-Wall St edges lower as tech shares fall, bond yields rise

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* Jobless claims dip, but still remain elevated
* Best Buy slips on downbeat annual sales forecast
* Big tech stocks fall; banks, energy shares gain
* Indexes down: Dow 0.11%, S&P 0.20%, Nasdaq 0.26%

(Updates to market open)
By Devik Jain and Shreyashi Sanyal
Feb 25 (Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes edged lower on
Thursday as heavyweight technology-related stocks remained under
pressure with a rise in U.S. Treasury yields, while data showed
weekly jobless claims fell more than expected.
The benchmark 10-year Treasury yields US10YT=RR hit a
one-year high of 1.45%, prompting investors to lock in profits
on some high-flying growth stocks due to concerns over
heightened valuations.
Microsoft Corp MSFT.O , Alphabet Inc GOOGL.O , Facebook
Inc FB.O and Netflix Inc NFLX.O were down between 0.2% and
0.6% in early trading.
"The higher the yield on bonds, the more we see this push to
move out of stocks," said Jeffrey Carbone, managing partner at
Cornerstone Wealth, in Huntersville, North Carolina.
"The market is starting to get a bit frothy, so investors
are taking some gains off the growth areas of stocks, which had
the biggest movements and moving it to more conservative areas
for higher yields in the bond market."
The S&P 500 financial sector .SPSY , which hit a new peak,
and energy .SPNY were the biggest gainers among the 11 major
S&P sectors.
The banks .SPXBK index also gained 0.43%, scaling a record
high.
The S&P 500 growth index .IGX has risen 2.3% in February,
sharply underperforming the value index .IVX , which has gained
9% on optimism related to a post-pandemic reopening of the
economy.
Meanwhile, the Labor Department's weekly jobless claims
report showed fewer Americans filed new claims for unemployment
benefits last week amid falling COVID-19 infections, but the
near-term outlook still remained unclear after winter storms
wreaked havoc in the South region in the middle of this month.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday, continued
adding weight to the central bank's promise to get the economy
back to full employment, and to not worry about inflation unless
prices begin rising in a persistent and troubling way.
The S&P 500 .SPX and the Dow Jones .DJI are tracking
their best monthly performance since November as the United
States accelerates its coronavirus vaccination program and plans
further fiscal spending to support the world's largest economy.
At 9:51 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI was
down 36.71 points, or 0.11%, at 31,925.15, the S&P 500 .SPX
was down 8.01 points, or 0.20%, at 3,917.42, and the Nasdaq
Composite .IXIC was down 35.34 points, or 0.26%, at 13,562.63.
Tesla Inc TSLA.O fell 1.5% after a media report that the
electric-car maker told workers it would temporarily halt some
production at its car assembly plant in California. Best Buy Co Inc BBY.N slid 2.9% after the consumer
electronics retailer missed estimates for holiday-quarter
comparable sales and provided a weak full-year
forecast. Moderna Inc MRNA.O jumped 8.9% after the drugmaker said it
was expecting to post $18.4 billion in sales from its COVID-19
vaccine this year. Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.08-to-1 ratio
on the NYSE and a 1.09-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded 61 new 52-week highs and no new low,
while the Nasdaq recorded 159 new highs and three new lows.