US STOCKS-Wall St falls as tech stocks sink again, jobless claims still high

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* Weekly jobless claims stuck at high levels
* Fed vows to keep rates low until 2023
* Technology stocks sell off, financials fall

(Updates to close)
By Caroline Valetkevitch
Sept 17 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks dropped on Thursday as
technology-related shares extended a recent slide and as data
showed high levels of weekly jobless claims.
Apple Inc AAPL.O and Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O were among
the biggest drags on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq, which entered
correction territory this month.
From the March market lows, "this has been an amazing
recovery represented by a few good tech names," said Jake
Dollarhide, chief executive officer of Longbow Asset Management
in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
"They had an incredible last week of August, and I think
this is a rational profit-taking scenario at the moment."
He expects tech-related names to bounce back before the end
of the year.
While the S&P 500 technology index .SPLRCT weighed the
most on the benchmark index, the S&P 500 real estate sector
.SPLRCR and financials .SPSY also sold off sharply.
Adding to concerns around a stalling recovery, the Labor
Department's report showed the number of Americans filing new
claims for unemployment benefits fell last week, but remained
perched at extremely high levels. On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve pledged to keep interest
rates low for a prolonged period to lift the world's biggest
economy out of a pandemic-induced recession.
Unofficially, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell
129.94 points, or 0.46%, to 27,902.44, the S&P 500 .SPX lost
28.42 points, or 0.84%, to 3,357.07 and the Nasdaq Composite
.IXIC dropped 140.19 points, or 1.27%, to 10,910.28.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell laid out a menu of factors -
including wage growth, workforce participation and disparities
in minority joblessness relative to whites - that must be
satisfied before the Fed would view the economy at maximum
employment, and thus even consider raising interest rates.
"Investors love when the Fed lowers rates, because they feel
that's good for market," Dollarhide said. "But if the Fed says
we need to keep rates low for longer, then people start worrying
about the economy itself."
General Electric Co GE.N rose after Chief Executive
Officer Larry Culp said on Wednesday the company's free cash
flow would turn positive in the second half. Ford Motor Co F.N gained as it said it had begun
production of the new generation F-150 pickup truck at its
Michigan facility.