US stocks were slightly down in early trades Thursday as traders digested recent sessions of wild market swings. The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 30.45 points (0.28 percent) to 10,866.46 by 1600 GMT. The tech-rich Nasdaq composite lost 12.10 points (0.50 percent) at 2,412.92 while the broad-market Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 5.31 points (0.45 percent) to 1,166.36. 'The US equity markets remain nearly unchanged in late-morning action as traders reflect on the wild swings in the markets recently, which has the major markets up solidly this week,' Charles Schwab analysts told clients. US stocks had soared Wednesday on favorable US economic data as well as positive news in Europe even as the continent battles a debt crisis. Having lurched wildly for the past week, stocks hovered in or around negative territory in opening trades on Thursday. 'That isn't bad given the scope of recent gains,' said Patrick O'Hare of Briefing.com. Stock markets initially pared a fraction of Wednesday's gains on a mixed jobs report which showed new claims for unemployment insurance benefits fell last week for the fourth time in a row. But the report also reaffirmed the slow pace of the economic recovery. The Labor Department said initial jobless claims totaled 444,000 in the week ending May 8, down 4,000 from the prior week's revised figure of 448,000. 'The labor market is gradually recovering as businesses are growing more confident and slowing the pace of payroll reduction,' said Andrew Gledhill at Moody's Economy.com. Shares in Alcoa rose over five percent after Deutsche Bank said it was lowering its selling price target for the top alumnium company's shares. Cisco Systems shares fell around four percent despite the computer networking giant posting better-than-expected quarterly results on Wednesday. The San Jose, California-based manufacturer of switches and routers for the Internet and wireless networks said net profit rose 62.6 percent in the third quarter to 2.2 billion dollars. 