US STOCKS-Tech stocks drag Wall St lower; Biden's presser in focus

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* Weekly jobless claims fall
* All eyes on Biden's press conference later in the day
* Nike skids on social media fallout over Xinjiang statement
* Indexes off: Dow 0.18%, S&P 0.24%, Nasdaq 0.51%

(Adds comment; updates prices)
By Devik Jain
March 25 (Reuters) - The technology-heavy Nasdaq led Wall
Street lower on Thursday as a rotation out of richly valued
stocks into underpriced sectors added to pressure from
quarter-end rebalancing by institutional investors.
The main U.S. stock indexes also shrugged off the Labor
Department's jobless claims report - the most timely indicator
of economic health - that showed fewer-than-expected Americans
filed new claims for state unemployment benefits last week.
Seven of the 11 S&P sectors fell, led by the communication
services .SPLRCL and technology .SPLRCT indexes, which house
some of the best-performing stocks of 2020 including Apple Inc
AAPL.O , Microsoft Corp MSFT.O and Netflix Inc NFLX.O .
"This is likely just one of those periods where you have a
little profit taking and a little quarter-end rebalancing, but
this little pullback will probably run its course and we'll see
the market back at new highs fairly soon," said Jordan Kahn,
chief investment officer of ACM Funds in Los Angeles.
The Nasdaq Composite .IXIC has fallen in March after four
straight months of gains as rosy economic projections lifted
demand for undervalued cyclical stocks, but also raised fears of
higher inflation and a potential tax hike.
In testimonies to Congress this week, Federal Reserve Chair
Jerome Powell expressed optimism about a strong U.S. economic
rebound, while Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said future tax
hikes will be needed to pay for public investments. President Joe Biden is expected to lay out a new goal for
U.S. vaccinations against COVID-19 at his first formal White
House news conference beginning at 1:15 p.m. ET (1715 GMT). Next
week, he is also set to unveil a multitrillion-dollar
infrastructure plan in Pittsburgh. "It's a tale of two different markets at this point and it
depends on what the market wants to focus on," said Faron Daugs,
founder and chief executive officer of Harrison Wallace
Financial Group in Libertyville, Illinois.
"Does it want to focus on stimulus, increased vaccinations
and re-opening economies or on potential taxes, increased
regulation potentially in certain sectors, extremely high
spending and inflation."
Heavyweight technology stocks Facebook Inc FB.O , Google
parent Alphabet Inc GOOGL.O and Twitter Inc TWTR.N slipped
about 1% ahead of their chief executives' testimony before
Congress about extremism and misinformation on their services.
By 12:13 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI
was down 0.18%, the S&P 500 .SPX was down 0.24% and the Nasdaq
Composite .IXIC was down 0.51%.
The CBOE volatility index .VIX was up for a third straight
day after briefly falling to its pre-pandemic lows earlier this
week.
Energy stocks .SPNY shed 1%, tracking lower crude prices.
O/R
Utilities .SPLRCU , consumer staples .SPLRCS and real
estate .SPLRCR stocks - perceived as safer during times of
economic uncertainty - were among the few gainers on the day.
Shares of Nike Inc NKE.N fell 4.4% as the sporting goods
giant faced a Chinese social media backlash over its comments
about reports of forced labor in Xinjiang. Darden Restaurants Inc DRI.N added 4.3% after it announced
a new share buyback plan and forecast upbeat fourth-quarter
revenue and profit. Declining issues nearly matched advancers on the NYSE and
the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded three new 52-week highs and no new
low, while the Nasdaq recorded 20 new highs and 150 new lows.