US STOCKS-Wall St falls as tech sells off again, jobless claims still high

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* Weekly jobless claims stuck at high levels
* Fed vows to keep rates low until 2023
* Technology stocks sell off, financials fall
* Indexes: Dow down 0.5%, S&P 500 down 0.8%, Nasdaq down
1.3%

(New throughout, updates prices, market activity and comments,
adds official close)
By Caroline Valetkevitch
Sept 17 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell on Thursday as
technology-related shares slid for a second day and as
government data showed high levels of weekly jobless claims.
Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O dropped 2.3% and Apple Inc AAPL.O
fell 1.6%, making them the biggest drags on the S&P 500 and
Nasdaq. Last week, the Nasdaq's losses put the index down 10%
from its closing record, confirming a correction began on Sept.
2.
From the March market lows, "this has been an amazing
recovery represented by a few good tech names," said Jake
Dollarhide, chief executive officer of Longbow Asset Management
in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
"They had an incredible last week of August, and I think
this is a rational profit-taking scenario at the moment."
Last week, all three major U.S. stock indexes posted a
second straight week of declines as investors sold tech-related
names that had powered the S&P 500 to record highs in a dramatic
rally from the March lows.
Dollarhide said he expects tech-related names to bounce back
before the end of the year.
The heavily weighted S&P 500 technology index .SPLRCT was
down 0.8% on the day, hitting the benchmark index the hardest.
The S&P 500 real estate sector .SPLRCR and financials .SPSY
also sold off sharply. Real estate was down 2.2% and financials
fell 1%.
Adding to concerns about a stalling recovery, the Labor
Department's report showed that while fewer Americans filed new
claims for unemployment benefits last week, the number remained
perched at extremely high levels. On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve pledged to keep interest
rates low for a prolonged period to lift the world's biggest
economy out of a pandemic-induced recession.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell 130.4 points,
or 0.47%, to 27,901.98, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 28.48 points, or
0.84%, to 3,357.01 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped
140.19 points, or 1.27%, to 10,910.28.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell laid out a menu of factors -
including wage growth, workforce participation and disparities
in minority joblessness relative to whites - that must be
satisfied before the Fed would view the economy at maximum
employment, and even consider raising interest rates.
"Investors love when the Fed lowers rates, because they feel
that's good for market," Dollarhide said. "But if the Fed says
we need to keep rates low for longer, then people start worrying
about the economy itself."
General Electric Co GE.N rose 4.4% a day after Chief
Executive Officer Larry Culp said the company's free cash flow
would turn positive in the second half. Ford Motor Co F.N gained 3.7% as it said it had begun
production of the new generation F-150 pickup truck at its
Michigan facility. Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a
1.61-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.36-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted 9 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 38 new highs and 18 new lows.
Volume on U.S. exchanges was 9.70 billion shares, compared
with the 9.47 billion average for the full session over the last
20 trading days.