us stocks were struggling for direction thursday morning after unemployment claims data signaled a softening labor market the dow jones industrial average djia was down 01 soon after the opening bell while the sp 500 spx and nasdaq composite comp were flipping between gains and losses according to factset data at last check the labor department said thursday that initial jobless claims climbed by 6000 to 26000 in the week ended july 30 thats in line with forecasts from economists polled by the wall street journal and near a ninemonth high