The 30-issue Dow Jones Industrial Average, which shed 30.72 points Thursday, edged down 1.22 points to finish at 10,465.94. Its closing on July's last trading day was 691.92 points higher than the last trading session a month earlier, the largest monthly gain since last July, when it increased 724.61 points on a monthly basis.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index, which went down 12.87 points the previous day, bounced back 3.01 points to 2,254.70.

Stocks opened lower as selling took the upper hand following the release of U.S. real gross domestic product data for the second quarter of 2010, which showed the pace of growth slowed from the preceding quarter, market analysts said. The Dow key index briefly lost nearly 120 points.

Buybacks of undervalued stocks set in later on better-than-expected data in the U.S. manufacturing and consumer spending sectors, they said.