Stocks fell Thursday, with the Dow industrials dropping back below 17,000, as investors fled equities and other risky assets after the crash of a passenger airplane in Ukraine. After wavering near unchanged, stock indexes turned lower and oil and gold prices jumped following reports involving Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. The crash of one of the national carrier's Boeing 777s with 295 people aboard near the Russian border came a day after the United States and the European Union imposed new sanctions on Moscow. U.S. economic news was mixed, with housing starts unexpectedly falling in June, jobless claims continuing to decline last week, and a gauge of regional manufacturing activity expanding in July. The U.S. dollar declined against the euro and the yen. Light sweet crude-oil futures surged $1.78, or 1.7 percent, to $102.98 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold futures rose $16.70, or 1.4 percent, to $1,316.14 an ounce. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 161.87, or 0.9 percent, to 16,976.33. Twenty-seven of the index's 30 components fell, led by Intel. UnitedHealth Group gained after the insurance giant's quarterly profit beat estimates. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 23.43, or 1.2 percent, to 1,958.14. Shares of Morgan Stanley fell after the brokerage reported quarterly results. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index fell 62.52, or 1.4 percent, to 4,363.34. Microsoft shares rose after the software giant said it would cut 18,000 jobs in the next year.
