Stock losses accelerated on Thursday morning as a disappointing quarter from Macy's (M) - Get Report spooked the rest of the retail sector.

The S&P 500 was down 0.59%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.54%, and the Nasdaq slid 0.7%.

Macy's tumbled 13% after missing profit and sales estimates over its recent quarter. Adjusted earnings of 24 cents a share came in 12 cents below estimates, while sales of $5.3 billion fell short by $200 million. Same-store sales at owned locations fell by 5.2%. Overall revenue declined by 7.5%. The retailer forecast a 3.2% to 4.3% decline in full-year sales.

Kohl's (KSS) - Get Report also reported a sharper-than-expected decline in same-store sales over its first quarter. Same-store sales dropped 2.7%, a steeper drop than an anticipated 1.2% fall. Net income rose to 39 cents a share in the first quarter from 9 cents a year earlier and beat estimates by a dime. Revenue of $3.84 billion came in lower than a target of $3.91 billion.

Watch: Jim Cramer: Buy Kohl's Off of Macy's Weakness

Other retail stocks moved sharply lower in sympathy. J.C. Penney (JCP) - Get Report , Sears (SHLD) , Nordstrom (JWN) - Get Report and Dillard's (DDS) - Get Report tumbled.

Snap (SNAP) - Get Report tanked 19% after reporting a massive quarterly loss. The owner of disappearing message app Snapchat reported a loss of $2.31 a share, far wider than an expected loss of 19 cents. Daily active users rose 5% to 8 million over the three months to March.

Snap attributed the loss in the first quarter to $2 billion worth of compensation-related expenses tied to its initial public offering in March. Of those expenses, CEO Evan Spiegel received a $750 million bonus for taking the company public.

Watch: Jim Cramer Breaks Down the Positives and Negatives of Snap's First Earnings Report

Daily active users, a closely watched number in the report, grew 5% quarter over quarter to 166 million, compared to analysts' projected 168 million. Despite being lower than expected, Snap's user growth improved compared with the fourth quarter, when its DAUs grew 4% quarter over quarter. Still, Snap's user numbers pale in comparison to Facebook, arguably Snap's biggest rival, which just said it reached nearly 2 billion monthly users.

Snap could be one of the most hated companies on Wall Street following its earnings result, argued Brian Sozzi over on our premium site Real Money. Get his insights with a free trial subscription to Real Money.

Jobless claims showed an unexpected decline in the past week, another sign of a healthy labor market. The number of new claims for unemployment benefits declined by 2,000 to 236,000, better than an expected increase to 244,000. The less volatile four-week claims average came in at 243,500.

Producer prices in the U.S. increased 0.5% in April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than double the gain analysts had anticipated. U.S. producer prices over the past 12 months increased 2.5% in April, its biggest increase since February 2012.

Straight Path Communications (STRP) confirmed that it had agreed to be acquired by Verizon (VZ) - Get Report in a deal worth $3.1 billion. Verizon's deal to buy Straight Path for $184 a share puts the company at a steep discount to its Wednesday close of roughly $223 a share. Straight Path will terminate a previous deal to be acquired by AT&T (T) - Get Report for $1.6 billion. Straight Path had agreed to that deal in April.

Watch: Verizon Emerges Ahead of Its Rival AT&T in the Race to Acquire Straight Path Communications

21st Century Fox (FOXA) - Get Report beat analysts' estimates on the bottom-line but missed on the top. The media company earned an adjusted 54 cents a share over its recent quarter, 6 cents higher than consensus. Revenue increased to $7.56 billion from $7.23 billion in the year-ago quarter. Analysts anticipated sales of $7.63 billion.

Merck (MRK) - Get Report increased 2% after receiving approval for Keytruda in combination with chemotherapy as a treatment for first-line lung cancer. JPMorgan analyst Chris Schott said the development was a "clear positive as it positions the company in a leadership position."

Delta Air Lines (DAL) - Get Report raised its dividend by 50% and approved a new share buyback program. The airline increased its dividend to an annual rate of $1.22 a share, up from 81 cents. The new dividend will begin in September. A fresh $5 billion share repurchase program will go into effect once its previous $5 billion program has been exhausted.

Wall Street closed mixed on Wednesday after Donald Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey wrapped the White House in another controversy, worrying investors holding out for progress on Trump's business-friendly agenda. The White House pointed to Comey's handling of the investigation into former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's private email server as reason for the firing. However, Trump frequently praised Comey's decision to go public with details of the investigation on the campaign trail.

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq both narrowly set new record closes on Wednesday. The Nasdaq has seen record closes for four sessions in a row as volatility held at its lowest level in more than two decades. The tech-heavy index has closed at records 31 times so far this year. The Volatility Index, often referred to as the fear index, traded at its lowest level in 24 years earlier in the week.

"The most powerful force in this market right now is inertia," said James "Rev Shark" Deporre in his column for our premium site Real Money. "Inertia is the tendency to do nothing or to remain unchanged and that is what's happening despite the best efforts of pundits to find something that will move this market."

Cutting off global lines and employing protectionist trade policies will only hurt the global economy, New York Federal Reserve President William Dudley warned on Thursday morning. Speaking at the Bombay Stock Exchange in India Thursday, Dudley said that countries need to "compete better, not compete less" and that "trade barriers are a very expensive way to preserve jobs in less competitive or declining industries." Trump has pledged to renegotiate a number of previous trade deals with some of the U.S.'s largest trading partners and allies.

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