Wall Street stocks fell for a second successive day in a choppy day of trading on Thursday as concerns about earnings in the technology and financial sectors overcame initial enthusiasm at better than expected data on employment and growth.

On Wednesday night Oracle posted disappointing results that knocked sentiment in the whole sector, analysts said. Third-quarter sales at the software group were $5.35bn, missing analysts' forecasts of $5.42bn, while net income rose 30 per cent to $1.34bn.