NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- U.S. stocks ended Thursday in the red, but off the lows of the day, after investors were disappointed by European Central Bank president Mario Draghi's failure to announce concrete plans to help solve Europe's debt crisis.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 92 points, or 0.7%. The S&P 500 was also down 0.7%. The Nasdaq shed 0.4%.
Investors had hoped that Draghi would announce some form of new action after he pledged last week that the ECB would do "whatever it takes" to preserve the euro.
But Draghi merely echoed previous remarks.
"Once again, we have no commitment to action from the ECB, and no execution of promises previously made," said Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics. "Nothing seems set to happen now."
In absence of an explicit commitment, borrowing costs in Spain and Italy moved higher Thursday. Spain's 10-year yield rose back above 7%, while Italy's 10-year yield moved above 6%.
Still, investors are hoping that the ECB will act...eventually.
"Even though no action was taken today, we should still see ECB bond buying over the next several weeks or months," said Michael Sheldon, chief market strategist RDM Financial Group.
Investors will turn their attention back to the U.S. Friday though, when the government will release its highly anticipated monthly jobs report for July.
"Tomorrow's the beginning of a new game, where the market's going to be driven by the employment report, even though the consensus is that it will show more of the same," said Brian Gendreau, a market strategist at Cetera Financial Group.
A CNNMoney survey of economists predicts that the economy added 95,000 jobs in July -- that includes 105,000 job gains in the private sector and 10,000 job losses in the public sector. The unemployment rate is expected to stay at 8.2%.
Currencies and commodities: The dollar rose against the euro and the British pound but fell versus the Japanese yen.
Oil for September delivery declined $1.59 to $87.31 a barrel.
Gold futures for August delivery fell $16.30 to $1,587.40 an ounce.
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