The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 176.70 points, or 0.49 percent, to 36,113.62. The S&P 500 dropped 67.32 points, or 1.42 percent, to 4,659.03. The Nasdaq Composite Index shed 381.58 points, or 2.51 percent, to 14,806.81.
Eight of the 11 primary S&P 500 sectors ended in red, with technology and consumer discretionary down 2.65 percent and 2.08 percent, respectively, leading the laggards. Utilities rose 0.45 percent, the best-performing group.
U.S.-listed Chinese companies traded lower with all the top 10 stocks by weight in the S&P U.S. Listed China 50 index ending the day on a downbeat note.
On the economic front, the U.S. Labor Department said on Thursday that the nation's producer price index, also U.S. wholesale prices, rose 0.2 percent in December, the smallest increase in 13 months. The increase fell short of the 0.4-percent forecast by economists.
Meanwhile, a separate report by the Labor Department showed U.S. initial jobless claims, a rough way to measure layoffs, rose by 23,000 to 230,000 in the week ending Jan. 8. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had estimated new claims would slip to 200,000.
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