Stocks ended lower on Thursday, as investors received a full day of weaker-than-expected economic reports. In U.S. economic news, the Department of Labor said in its weekly jobless claims report that the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment rose to 445,000 last week—much higher than the 415,000 claims economists expected. The U.S. government also said that continuing claims—a measure of Americans who have been receiving benefits for a week or more—fell to 3.8 million. That was lower than the forecast of 4.08 million. Meanwhile, the Commerce Department said that the Producer Price Index, a measure of wholesale inflation, rose 1.1 percent in December. The December figure was higher than the expected increase of 0.8 percent. The Commerce Department also said that the trade balance was practically unchanged at $38.3 billion. Economists expected to have the trade balance widened to $41 billion in November. In U.S. company news, shares of Marathon Oil ended the day up 6 percent on reports that it will split into two separate companies. The news comes one day after manufacturing firm ITT said it would split itself up into three separate entities. Shares of ITT closed down more than 3 percent. The U.S. dollar fell against the euro and the yen. Light sweet crude oil for February delivery fell 46 cents to $91.40 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold futures fell $1.20 to $1,387 an ounce. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 23.54, or 0.2 percent, to 11,731.90. Merck lead the declines, with shares dropping 6 percent after the drugmaker said it stopped giving an experimental blood clotting drug to certain patients in a clinical trial. Alcoa and Microsoft were other big decliners on the Dow. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 2.20, or 0.2 percent, to 1,283.76. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index fell 2.04, or 0.1 percent, to 2,735.29.
