US stocks slipped on Thursday, with the Dow and the S&P giving up gains by midday in volatile trading as investors' worries about the economy overshadowed an earlier bounce driven by bargain hunters. Caterpillar, a maker of bulldozers and excavators, weighed on the Dow, in the wake of giving a sales warning and reporting lower quarterly profit earlier this week.
Late Wednesday, some brokerages cut their price targets on the stock. A disappointing sales outlook from online retailer Amazon.com Inc for the holiday season helped drag the Nasdaq lower.
The Dow Jones industrial average dipped 3.26 points, or 0.04 percent, to 8,515.95. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was off 6.20 points, or 0.69 percent, to 890.58. The Nasdaq Composite Index fell 27.29 points, or 1.69 percent, to 1,588.46. Earlier in the day, the Dow had risen as much as 3.3 percent, or 276.78 points, to a session high at 8,795.99 in a rally driven by bargain hunters.