Dow Jones Industrial Average : S&P dips as rising yields offset strong retail data

Good news for the economy on Main Street turned out to be too good for much of Wall Street. An unexpectedly strong retail sales report prompted a sell-off in tech stocks, helping drag down the Dow and S&P 500 Thursday.

Retail sales grew despite Hurricane Ida and the Delta variant, and that helped drive up stocks of retailers like The Gap and Tapestry. But it also triggered a rise in bond yields, which led investors to unload rate-sensitive, market leading tech titans like Apple and Alphabet.

Terence Gabriel is Stocks Buzz Analyst at Thomson Reuters.

"Stronger-than-expected economic data gets the market worrying again that the Fed is going to taper aggressively, so it's a difficult moment for the market to be in."

The Dow and S&P 500 declined nearly two-tenths of a percent. But a rally by Amazon helped lift the Nasdaq a tenth of a percent.

U.S.-based casino operators with operations in Macau extended their steep slide. J.P. Morgan downgraded Las Vegas Sands, Wynn Resorts and Melco Resorts to "neutral" from "overweight" after Macau launched a regulatory overhaul.

Shares of Ford Motor gained one-and-a-third percent. The automaker said it'll boost production of its electric pickup truck, the F-150 Lightning due to strong demand. Sales start next spring.