Blue chip stocks fell Thursday, with declines in Cisco Systems, International Business Machines and J.P. Morgan Chase pushing the Dow Jones Industrial Average below the psychologically important 10000 mark on continued worries about economic growth.

The Dow dropped 74.25 points, or 0.74%, to 9985.81, its lowest close since July 6. Cisco was the measure's worst performer with a drop of 51 cents, or 2.4%, to 20.70.

IBM dropped 2.49, or 2%, to 122.78, contributing nearly 19 points to the price weighted index's decline. J.P. Morgan slipped 60 cents, or 1.7%, to 35.63.

The Nasdaq Composite lost 22.85, or 1.07%, to 2118.69, the measure's fifth lowest close so far this year. The Standard & Poor's 500 index shed 8.11, or 0.77%, to 1047.22, its sixth lowest close this year.

The declines came as investors grew increasingly nervous ahead of the government's Friday release of its revised estimate for second quarter gross domestic product, in addition to a speech from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke at the central bank's annual meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyo.

European market

European stocks advanced Thursday, as investors cheered better than expected U.S. jobs data and solid earnings results from French firms including banking group Credit Agricole and cosmetics giant L'Oreal.

The Stoxx Europe 600 index gained 0.9% to 249.65, erasing the past session's decline. The index, which spent the day in the green, enjoyed a further boost after the release of U.S. weekly jobless claims data.

The number of people filing first time claims for unemployment benefits fell for the first time in a month, down 31,000 to 473,000, the Labor Department reported.

Among the major European indexes, the U.K. FTSE 100 index closed up 0.9% to 5,155.84, the French CAC 40 index gained 0.7% to 3,475.03 and Germany's Dax-30 index advanced 0.2% to 5,912.58 points. A slew of French companies reported encouraging results Thursday.

One of the top gainers on the French index was Accor, whose shares rose 3.9%. The hotels group said its first half loss shrank to EUR64 million euros from EUR236 million in the year earlier period.

It was also a good day for Credit Agricole, which advanced 2.7%. France's third largest banking group posted an 89% jump in second quarter net profit to EUR379 million, helped by the performance of its domestic retail business and investment banking arm.

Asian market

Asian stock markets ended mostly higher Thursday with Chinese coal mining companies gaining on hopes of industry consolidation.

Japan's Nikkei Stock Average ended 0.7% higher, China's Shanghai Composite rose 0.3%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index slipped 0.1%, and South Korea's Kospi fell 0.3%.

Coal miners gained in Shanghai trading on hopes the government will further speed up consolidation of the coal industry.

The State Council Wednesday issued a statement stressing the need to push ahead with consolidation efforts. China Shenhua Energy rose 0.5%, Datong Coal Industry added 1.4% and China Coal Energy gained 1.5%.

Commodities and metals

Base metals on the London Metal Exchange Thursday bounced back sharply after a string of down days, getting a boost from better than expected U.S. jobless claims data.

Copper ended 2.9% higher after having dipped to a one month low the day before. Tin surged 5% and recouped nearly all of the losses of the past week. Zinc, which like copper jumped overnight on Chinese arbitrage buying, built on those gains to close 4.4% higher.

Crude oil futures ended higher Thursday, rebounding from recent lows after the Labor Department reported a surprisingly large drop in new jobless claims.

Light, sweet crude for October delivery settled up 84 cents, or 1.2%, at $73.36 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude on the ICE futures exchange settled $1.54, or 2.1%, higher at $75.02 a barrel.

Gold futures declined slightly as stronger-than-expected jobless data shaved off some of the metal's recent haven premium, but losses were kept in check as the market remains fretful about the pace of the economic recovery.

The most actively traded gold contract, for December delivery, fell $3.60, or 0.3%, to settle at $1,237.70 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.