US stocks edge lower as investors wade through earnings and labor-market data

• US stocks lost ground Thursday, with IBM weaker after a revenue miss.
• Investors received the weekly jobless claims report showing a decline to a new pandemic-era low.

US stocks declined Thursday as investors assessed a new round of earnings reports and jobless claims at pandemic-era lows while seeing worries over the Evergrande crisis in China resurface.

All three of Wall Street's big equity indexes were slightly lower, with the broad S&P 500 index on the verge of ending a six-session run of wins. On the Dow Jones Industrial Average, IBM shares dropped following a quarterly revenue miss by Big Blue.

Here's where US indexes stood at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday:

• S&P 500: 4,530.45, down 0.13%
• Dow Jones Industrial Average: 35,533.07, down 0.21% (76.27 points)
• Nasdaq Composite: 15,094.14, down 0.18%

US stock futures and other global stock markets came under pressure as embattled Chinese property developer Evergrande Group shares resumed trading after a suspension of more than two weeks. The stock sank as much as 14% in Hong Kong after a $2.6 billion deal fell through. Investors have been concerned about a potential collapse of Evergrande and how it could ripple through global financial markets.

The US Department of Labor on Thursday said weekly filings for unemployment insurance fell again last week, setting them at another pandemic-era low. Jobless claims reached 290,000 last week. The median estimate from economists surveyed by Bloomberg was for a slight increase to 300,000 claims.

"At 290,000, weekly US initial jobless claims again came in better than expected. [That] Will reinforce the move among more #Fed officials judging that the "substantial further progress test" has been met. The more this continues, the greater the challenge to separating taper from rates," Allianz chief economist Mohamed El-Erian said in a Twitter post.

Around the markets, gold slipped less than 0.1% at $1,781.54 per ounce. The 10-year Treasury yield edged down to 1.659%.

Oil prices dropped. West Texas Intermediate crude lost 0.7% at $82.85 per barrel. Brent oil, the international benchmark, turned lower, down 0.8% to $85.10 per barrel.

Bitcoin fell 1.7% to $64,893.74.