Stocks ended Thursday's session lower as tech stocks continued to lose steam from their recent multi-week rally and market participants weighed new economic data against speedy recovery hopes. On one side, the Commerce Department's data on retail sales reported an increase of 7.5% for June, a reading that was better than expected and led a second straight month of gains from May's 18.2% increase. One the other side, jobless claims remained above one million per week for the seventh-straight week in a row, raising a potentially long-term issue of a high unemployment and less consumer discretionary spending.

The Labor Department's weekly jobless claims for the week ended July 11 reported another 1.3 million individuals filing for unemployment benefits, a fall from the previous week's reading but still above expectations. Continuing unemployment claims also fell to 17.338 million for the week ended July 4, an improvement but still stubbornly high.

While unemployment and retail sales are showing signs of improvement, even though some may be slower than others, investors cannot ignore the glaring number of coronavirus infections across some of the most populous states like California, Florida and Texas. The continued untamed outbreak of the virus threatens full economic recovery, for its hinders sustained job growth and increases financial uncertainty.

Here's how the market closed on Thursday:

S&P 500 Index (SPY  ): -0.36% or -11.59 points to 3,214.97

Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA  ): -0.52% or -138.90 points to 26,731.20

Nasdaq Composite Index (QQQ  ): -0.80% or -84.76 points to 10,465.73

For Major Stocks, big tech was pressured again on Thursday, with Amazon (AMZN  ), Apple (AAPL  ), Facebook (FB  ), Google (GOOGL  ) and Microsoft (MSFT  ) all settling lower as the extended tech rally begins to even out gains. Netflix (NFLX  ), however, ticked higher ahead of its quarterly earnings report set for after market close. American Airlines (AAL  ) and JetBlue (JBLU  ) entered a new partnership where passengers will be able to purchase tickets between the airlines to help alleviate some of the coronavirus impact on travel demand. Twitter (TWTR  ) shares fell on Thursday following Wednesday's late digital currency scam hacking of several high-profile accounts.

For Sector Performance, industries ended Thursday's session mixed. Those that posted performance gains include: Utilities +1.32%, Materials +0.36%, Communication Services +0.30%, Consumer Staples +0.22% and Industrials ended flat. The rest that end the trading day in the negative include: Information Technology -1.22%, Real Estate -1.19%, Energy -0.51%, Consumer Discretionary -0.27%, Health Care -0.17% and Financial -0.05%.

For Commodities and Currency, crude oil prices fell on Thursday following the OPEC+ decision to ease supply cuts from August. Both West Texas Intermediate (USO  ) and Brent Crude (BNO  ) fell around 1%, settling barrel prices at $40.75 and $43.35, respectively. Gold (GLD  ) prices also fell on Thursday following some positive U.S. economic data. Spot gold fell below the $1,800 per ounce threshold by 0.8% to price at $1,796 per ounce, while futures settled 0.7% lower at $1,800.30 per ounce. Finally, the U.S. Dollar (UUP  ) dropped with gold due to the better-than-expected retail data, with the DXY Index declining 0.07%.

For Friday, investors will focus on more economic data like consumer sentiment as well as another fresh batch of quarterly earnings from companies like BlackRock (BLK  ) and State Street (STT  ).