Stocks pulled back Thursday as a drop in weekly unemployment claims and stronger-than-expected results from Ford Motor Co. helped offset concerns about cautious comments from some retailers.

The retreat wasn’t surprising as investors tried to square their concerns about forecasts from Amazon.com Inc. and Starbucks Corp. with the drop in weekly unemployment claims and the results from Ford.

Wall Street is collating the rush of quarterly profit and loss reports as well as the fresh economic data to help determine how long the economy’s slowdown might last. Some of the companies’ forecasts underscored a worrisome notion that the economy might enter a prolonged period of sluggishness, while others signaled for some investors that Wall Street has been overly dour in its assessment of the business climate.

The Labor Department’s report that claims for unemployment benefits declined by 33,000 last week to 342,000 came as a surprise after economists predicted claims would rise by 3,000. The notion that unemployment might be contained appeared to cap some concern about the economy. With consumer spending accounting for about 70 percent of U.S. economic activity, a rise in unemployment could dent people’s willingness to reach into their wallets.

In the first hour of trading, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 18.48, or 0.14 percent, to 12,744.74.

Broader stock indicators declined. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index slipped 4.77, or 0.35 percent, to 1,375.16, and the Nasdaq composite index fell 14.76, or 0.61 percent, to 2,390.45.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers by about 5 to 4 on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 145.6 million shares.

Bond prices fell following the drop in unemployment claims. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, rose to 3.82 percent from 3.74 percent late Wednesday.

The dollar rose against most other major currencies, while gold prices fell.

Light, sweet crude fell $1.39 to $116.91 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

While investors appeared pleased by the employment report not all the day’s economic news was welcome. Orders to factories for durable goods _ big-ticket items like refrigerators, cars and computers _ declined for a third straight month in March. This marks the longest sustained pullback since the 2001 recession.

And investors also found reason to worry from the comments from Amazon and Starbucks. Amazon worried investors over the strength of its profit margins, while Starbucks warned that its second-quarter profit will likely fall short of Wall Street’s expectations because of weak consumer spending.

Their forecasts, delivered after the closing bell Wednesday, touched off unease over the prospects for the consumer.

In other corporate news, 3M Co. _ the maker of Scotch tape and Post-It notes _ said it its first-quarter profit fell 28 percent from a year earlier, which benefited from a gain on the sale of one of its branded pharmaceutical business in Europe.

PepsiCo Inc. said its first-quarter earnings rose 5 percent as improved revenue from its international division helped make up for increased commodity costs.

Motorola Inc. said its first-quarter loss widened as sales in its mobile unit fell 39 percent.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 6.50, or 0.92 percent, to 701.61.

Overseas, Japan’s Nikkei stock average fell 0.28 percent. In afternoon trading, Britain’s FTSE 100 fell 1.01 percent, Germany’s DAX index rose 0.30 percent, and France’s CAC-40 fell 0.50 percent.

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