(For a Reuters live blog on U.S., UK and European stock
markets, click or type LIVE/ in a news window)*Disney jumps on Q1 beat, layoff plans*PepsiCo gains on quarterly profit, sales beat*Salesforce rises on reports Third Point owns stake*U.S. weekly jobless claims increase*Dow down 0.52%, S&P 500 down 0.56%, Nasdaq down 0.65%Feb 9 (Reuters) - U.S. stock indexes turned lower on
Thursday afternoon as Treasury yields rose after an auction,
overshadowing gains in Disney after strong earnings."The stock market started today's session with a distinct
bullish bias, but then Treasury yields moved up and that took
some of the steam out of the positive market today," said Jason
Ware, chief investment officer at Albion Financial Group in Salt
Lake City, Utah. He said investors were also still digesting
recent comments from Fed officials.The U.S. 30-year Treasury yield rose after an auction in the
early afternoon, while the yield curve between two-year and
10-year notes widened earlier.Wall Street's three main indexes opened higher after data
showed initial claims for state unemployment benefits rose
13,000 to a seasonally adjusted 196,000 last week, above a
forecast of 190,000 claims.The data tentatively eased concerns about the Federal
Reserve's rate-hike path after a strong January employment
report rattled markets last week.Weighing on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq indexes,
Alphabet Inc extended losses from the previous session
to fall 5.2179%. The S&P 500 communication services sector
sank 2.86%.The Google parent's new chatbot shared inaccurate
information on Wednesday, feeding worries that it is losing
ground to rival Microsoft Corp.Meanwhile, Disney Co was up 0.36% after posting the
highest gains since late August. It beat earnings estimates and
announced job cuts, encouraging activist investor Nelson Peltz
to terminate his quest for a board seat.Salesforce Inc added 2.31% on reports that hedge
fund Third Point LLC owns a stake in the company.At 2:36 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
fell 175.71 points, or 0.52%, to 33,773.3, the S&P 500
lost 23.16 points, or 0.56%, to 4,094.7 and the Nasdaq Composite
dropped 77.55 points, or 0.65%, to 11,832.97.Stocks have enjoyed an upbeat start to the year on hopes
that the Fed will abandon its hawkish rhetoric and pilot the
economy to a soft landing.Traders are betting that the Fed will raise its benchmark
rate to a peak of 5.1% in July, largely in line with the
forecasts of Fed officials.PepsiCo Inc rose 0.67% as the snack and beverage
maker reported better-than-expected results, while drugmaker
AbbVie Inc gained 3.08% after beating fourth-quarter
profit expectations.Ralph Lauren Corp gained 1.01% after beating
quarterly sales expectations, while peer Tapestry Inc
soared 4.48% on a strong annual profit forecast.More than half of the S&P 500 companies have reported
quarterly earnings so far, and 69% of them have beaten
estimates, according to Refinitiv data.Cardiovascular Systems Inc soared 48.38% after
Abbott Laboratories said it would buy the medical device
maker for $837.6 million. Abbott fell 1.80%.Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a
1.85-to-1 ratio; on the Nasdaq, a 2.02-to-1 ratio favored
decliners.The S&P 500 posted 15 new 52-week highs and one new low; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 69 new highs and 41 new lows.
(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar, Medha Singh, Johann M Cherian and
Ankika Biswas  in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila,
Shounak Dasgupta and Deepa Babington)