U.S. stocks open lower amid disappointing earnings

U.S. stocks opened lower Thursday, continuing a tight trading range as major benchmarks hovered around record levels.

On the earnings front, investors were digesting disappointing quarterly earnings reports from Snap and Macy's.

Shares of Snap Inc. tumbled 20.18 percent to 18.32 U.S. dollars in early trading, as its first quarterly results since going public missed estimates.

After the closing bell Wednesday, the company reported its first-quarter revenue of 149.65 million dollars, lower than the 158 million dollars expected by a Thomson Reuters consensus estimate.

On Thursday, Macy's reported earnings of 23 cents per diluted share, compared with 37 cents per diluted share in the first quarter last year.

Shares of Macy's dropped 11.73 percent to 25.90 dollars in early trading.

On the economic front, in the week ending May 6, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 236,000, a decrease of 2,000 from the previous week's unrevised level of 238,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday.

The 4-week moving average was 243,500, an increase of 500 from the previous week's unrevised average of 243,000.

In a separate report, the department said the seasonally adjusted Producer Price Index for final demand advanced 0.5 percent in April.

On an unadjusted basis, the final demand index rose 2.5 percent for the 12 months ended April 2017, the largest increase since moving up 2.8 percent for the 12 months ended February 2012.

Shortly after the opening bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 33.05 points, or 0.16 percent, to 20,910.06. The S&P 500 lost 5.72 points, or 0.24 percent, to 2,393.91. The Nasdaq Composite Index erased 18.24 points, or 0.30 percent, to 6,110.90. Endi