U.S. stocks edged lower in choppy trading on Thursday as earnings, including Alibaba's, and a further drop in U.S. crude futures dragged shares lower, while a strong reading in the job market gave equities some support.

Alibaba Group shares dropped 9.2 percent to $89.37 after the company's revenue missed Wall Street expectations. The decline took shares of Yahoo, which said earlier this week it will spin off its Alibaba stake, down 5.9 percent to $43.72.

"Alibaba is growing more slowly than thought, and it's a stock a lot of people want to own," said Kim Forrest, senior equity research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh.

She said "the growth story of China is called into question" by the Alibaba results.

Supporting stocks, data showed weekly applications for unemployment insurance fell to their lowest in almost 15 years, adding to bullish signals on the labour market.

Trading was choppy as market participants continued to digest Wednesday's statement from the Federal Reserve.

The Fed reiterated its confidence in the U.S. economy, but some investors saw the nod to "international" developments as a potential signal rates could rise later than expected.

"The clearer the Fed wants to be the more it spooks the markets," said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey.

"The statement yesterday was confusing for markets. They (the Fed) put sentences in there for everyone."

The Dow Jones industrial average slightly up 11.82 points, or 0.07 percent, to 17,203.19, the S&P 500 down 4.43 points, or 0.22 percent, to 1997.73 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 20.44 points, or 0.44 percent, to 4,617.55.

The energy sector of the S&P 500 fell 0.9 percent and was the worst performer as U.S. crude oil fell below $44 a barrel for the first time since April 2009. The sector earlier fell 2 percent.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by 1,636 to 1,305, for a 1.25-to-1 ratio on the downside; on the Nasdaq, 1,353 issues fell and 1,214 advanced for a 1.11-to-1 ratio favouring decliners.

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