Markets slide on weekly jobs data

NEW YORK, Dec. 12 (UPI) -- U.S. markets lost ground Thursday for the eighth of the last 10 sessions as weekly first time jobless benefit claims soared in the week, climbing by 68,000.

The Labor Department reported first time jobless claims filed last week totaled 368,000 after falling to 300,000 for only the second time since March 2007.

Murphy's Law -- the law that says if something can go wrong, it will -- is also at play on Wall Street, as investors see negative data as negative and positive data as a sign that the U.S. Federal Reserve will ease back on its quantitative easing program, possibly announcing a tapering off of the program after its policy meeting next week.

With that in mind positive news has also been sending stocks lower recently.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 104.10 points or 0.66 percent to 15,739.43. The Standard & Poor's 500 gave up 6.72 points or 0.38 percent to 1,775.50. The tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped 5.41 points or 0.14 percent to 3,998.40.

On the New York Stock Exchange, 1,305 issues advanced while 1,786 declined on volume of 3.3 billion shares.

On foreign markets Japan's Nikkei 225 lost 173.25 points or 1.12 percent to 15,341.82. In Europe, London's FTSE 100 gave up 62.47 points or 0.96 percent to 6,445.25.

The 10-year treasury note lost 7/32, yields rising to 2.886 percent.

The dollar rose to 103.36 yen while falling marginally against the euro, which traded at $1.3753.

Gold was down $30.60 on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange at $1,226.60 per troy ounce. Silver shed 87 cents or 4.3 percent to $19.48.

In after hours NYMEX trading, crude oil shed 9 cents to $97.36 per barrel.