Stocks open lower on Wall Street, led by banks and tech

Stocks are opening modestly lower on Wall Street, led by drops in banks and technology companies. The S&P 500 slipped 0.2% in the early going Thursday. The benchmark index had snapped a two-day slide a day earlier and is still down for the week. There was encouraging news on the economy as the government reported another drop in claims for unemployment benefits last week to another pandemic low, while AT&T, Whirlpool and Equifax all rose after reporting strong quarterly results. Union Pa