Wall Street opened lower Thursday morning as major U.S. retailers reported weak sales in April.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., J.C. Penney Co. and Federated Department Stores Inc. all reported weak performances in April.

Meanwhile, the Labor Department reported that the number of laid off workers filing claims for unemployment benefits fell for a fourth straight time to 297,000 last week, a drop of 9,000 from the previous week.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 48.03 to 13,314.84. The Standard & Poor's 500 index was down 5.57 to 1,507.01, while the Nasdaq composite index declined 10.22 to 2,566.12.

Source: Xinhua