U.S. stocks closed mostly lower Thursday as traders eyed oil prices and awaited the retail sales report due Friday. In U.S. economic news, weekly jobless claims rose to 294,000. Import prices rose 0.3 percent in April, while export prices rose 0.5 percent. In corporate news, Apple briefly fell more than 2.5 percent to hit a fresh 52-week intraday low and contributed the most to declines in the Dow Jones industrial average, which tried for gains in afternoon trade. Boeing, Nike, Exxon Mobil, and Chevron were among those with the greatest positive impact on the index. The dollar traded about a third of a percent higher. Light sweet crude oil for June delivery added 47 cents to $46.70 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while gold futures dropped $4.30 to $1,271.20 an ounce. The Dow increased 51, or 0.29 percent, to 17,762. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 4, or 0.21 percent, to 2,068. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index declined 9, or 0.18 percent, to 4,752.
