Wall St. ends mostly lower; Nasdaq down for third session

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks mostly fell on Thursday with the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq closing lower, led by losses in the energy and utility sectors.

The Nasdaq ended lower for a third straight session, its longest losing streak since early April.

A turnaround in beaten-down internet stocks had boosted the Nasdaq earlier, while a drop in initial jobless claims suggested the labor market was improving and had helped lift the broader market.

But a late selloff in utilities and energy, among the best performing sectors recently, dragged the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq to session lows.

"I think it was technical once again. We got right to resistance, we challenged it, but had no momentum to get through," said Ken Polcari, director of the NYSE floor division at O'Neil Securities in New York.

The S&P utility sector index <.SPLRCU> fell 1.2 percent and the energy sector index <.SPNY> was off 1.3 percent.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> rose 32.43 points or 0.2 percent, to close at 16,550.97, the S&P 500 <.SPX> lost 2.58 points or 0.14 percent, to 1,875.63 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> dropped 16.177 points or 0.4 percent, to 4,051.496.

But the Global X Social Media Index ETF , which consist of internet stocks like Groupon , advanced 0.8 percent, after falling more than 14 percent since April 22. Twitter Inc jumped 4.2 percent to $31.96 and Groupon Inc gained 6.1 percent to $5.65 on Thursday.

Priceline Group fell 2.1 percent to $1,108.00. The travel website operator reported higher-than-expected quarterly profit but forecast second-quarter profit below estimates.

Tesla Motors shares fell 11.3 percent to $178.59, a day after the company's outlook also disappointed some investors.

Of 445 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings through Wednesday morning, 68.2 percent beat expectations, above the 63 percent average since 1994 and the 66 percent beat rate for the past four quarters, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Profits are expected to rise 5.3 percent this quarter, down from the 6.5 percent estimated at the start of the year, but above the low of 0.6 percent in mid-April.

About 6.7 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, above the 6.1 billion average over the past five days, according to data from BATS Global Markets.

U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, in testimony to a Senate panel, said no decision had yet been made on the central bank's portfolio of assets, which has swollen to $4.5 trillion from about $800 billion in 2007. If the Fed ultimately shrinks it to a pre-crisis size, the process could take the better part of a decade, Yellen said.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits declined 26,000 to a seasonally adjusted 319,000 for the week ended May 3, snapping three weeks of declines.

(Editing by Nick Zieminski)

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