Stocks Are Getting Slammed - Nasdaq Down 1.7%, Dow Off 240

In afternoon trade on Thursday, the Dow was down 240 points, the S&P 500 was down 27 points and the Nasdaq was down 77 points.

The Nasdaq was logging the day's largest percentage losses, falling 1.7%, while the Dow and S&P were down 1.4%.

The drop in stocks on Thursday comes after Wednesday saw the market rally following three straight losing sessions.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq is seeing the largest percentage losses with Apple down more than 2% as the iPhone maker deals with some fallout from its botched software update on Wednesday.

Yahoo shares are also down 2.3% as investors sort through the value of the company following the sale of some of its stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba last week. Alibaba shares were also down 2.3% on Thursday.

On Thursday morning we got three pieces of economic data, with initial jobless claims rising to 293,000 from 281,000 last week, though this was better than expected.

Durable goods orders fell by 18.2%, but this followed July's historic 22.6% increase, and excluding transportation, which was responsible for much of the rise in July, durable goods orders rose 0.7%.

Markit's services flash PMI came in at 58.5, which was worse than expected but still indicated strength in the US services sector.

In Fed speak, Dallas Fed president Richard Fisher said in comments made in Rome on Thursday that the Fed could raise rates "sooner rather than later."