Stocks were mostly lower this morning in choppy trade after economic data and comments from ECB head Mario Draghi.

Initial unemployment claims fell 11,000 to 346,000 last week. Economist had expected claims to fall to 345,000. The less volatile four-week moving average rose by 4,500 to 352,000 in the week. Separately, Challenger, Gray & Christmas said that planned job cuts fell 4.5% in May from April levels, the third-straight monthly decline. The jobs data comes ahead of Friday’s closely watched payroll report.

As expected, the European Central Bank left its key interest rate unchanged today. The bank also downgraded its eurozone GDP forecast for 2013 to -0.6% from -0.5% in March. ECB head Draghi said in a press conference that the bank had discussed the possibility of negative interest rates on bank deposits and that the bank stands “ready to act” if need be.

At midday the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Dow were down 0.1%, 0.2% and 0.3% respectively.