US STOCKS-Wall St slips as tech slide resumes, jobless claims rise

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* Declines in big tech-related firms pressure Nasdaq, S&P
500
* Walmart slides as tepid outlook overshadows upbeat Q4
sales
* Facebook shares slip on news blackout move in Australia
* Indexes down: Dow 0.87%, S&P 1.00%, Nasdaq 1.43%

(Adds comments; Updates prices to early afternoon)
By Devik Jain and Shreyashi Sanyal
Feb 18 (Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes fell on
Thursday as investors resumed a shift out of big
technology-related firms, while an unexpected rise in weekly
jobless claims pointed to a fragile recovery in the labor
market.
Shares of Apple Inc AAPL.O , Microsoft Corp MSFT.O , Tesla
Inc TSLA.O and Alphabet Inc GOOGL.O were down between 1.1%
and 2.5%, pressuring both the S&P 500 .SPX and the Nasdaq
.IXIC .
Facebook Inc FB.O shares slipped 2.4% as Wall Street
assessed the wider ramifications of its move to block all news
content in Australia. A stronger-than-expected earnings season, progress in
countrywide vaccination efforts and hopes of a $1.9 trillion
dollar stimulus package helped U.S. stock indexes hit record
highs at the beginning of the week.
However, concerns over a potential rise in inflation have
pushed investors to book profit on stocks with high valuation in
the S&P 500 technology .SPLRCT and communications services
.SPLRCL sectors, which have underpinned a 76% rise in the
benchmark index .SPX since its March 2020 lows. "There was a lot of irrational exuberance built into things
heading into the year ... then we started to enter an
environment where risk actually became a factor once again and
notably inflationary risk," said Peter Essele, head of portfolio
management at Commonwealth Financial Network in Boston.
"Now it's a question of whether the fundamentals are going
to match the level of prices that currently exist in the
market."
The Labor Department's report showed initial claims for
state unemployment benefits were 861,000 last week, compared
with 848,000 in the prior week, partly due to potential claims
related to the temporary closure of automobile plants due to a
global semiconductor chip shortage. "It's going to be some time and a choppy return to a normal
employment environment. But, by and large, as vaccines begin to
take hold as we get out from under the COVID overhang, you're
going to see a decline in unemployment," Essele said.
Only the defensive utilities sector .SPLRCU was in
positive territory, out of the 11 major S&P 500 sectors.
Walmart Inc WMT.N slid 5.5% after the world's largest
retailer missed quarterly profit estimates and predicted fiscal
2022 net sales to rise in low single digits.
At 12:13 p.m. ET the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI was
down 275.87 points, or 0.87%, at 31,337.15, the S&P 500 .SPX
was down 39.18 points, or 1.00%, at 3,892.15 and the Nasdaq
Composite .IXIC was down 199.51 points, or 1.43%, at
13,765.99.
Marriott International Inc MAR.O was down 0.1% after
reporting a quarterly loss as the hotel chain's bookings
declined due to pandemic-induced travel restrictions.
Declining issues outnumbered advancers for a 3.21-to-1 ratio
on the NYSE and for a 3.29-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded 12 new 52-week highs and no new low,
while the Nasdaq recorded 74 new highs and 14 new lows.