NEW YORK, Oct. 9 (Xinhua) -- U.S. stocks retreated on Thursday as both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq pulled back from record highs, while the U.S. federal government shutdown entered its ninth day with no signs of resolution.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 243.36 points, or 0.52 percent, to 46,358.42. The S&P 500 sank 18.61 points, or 0.28 percent, to 6,735.11. The Nasdaq Composite Index shed 18.75 points, or 0.08 percent, to 23,024.63.

Ten of the 11 primary S&P 500 sectors ended in red, with materials and industrials leading the laggards by losing 1.52 percent and 1.44 percent, respectively. Consumer staples bucked the trend by adding 0.61 percent.

The U.S. Senate on Thursday failed for the seventh time to pass competing funding proposals, prolonging the standoff in Washington. The Internal Revenue Service announced that nearly half of its workforce would be furloughed, while a shortage of air traffic controllers forced the Federal Aviation Administration to delay U.S. flights.

Delta shares rose 4 percent after the company reported better-than-expected earnings. Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian told CNBC that he has not seen "any impacts at all" so far from the shutdown but warned that "some impacts" could emerge "if this doesn't get resolved, say beyond another 10 days or so."

Meanwhile, Nvidia gained nearly 1.8 percent on Thursday after rising 2.2 percent on Wednesday, when CEO Jensen Huang said demand for computing power had "gone up substantially" in the past six months. Costco Wholesale stock rose more than 3 percent after the retailer reported strong monthly sales figures.

Tom Hainlin of U.S. Bank Asset Management said Delta's and Costco's results point to a resilient consumer in an uncertain macroeconomic environment. "You can kind of see in real time whether there's an inflection point in what the consumers are doing, and we haven't seen it yet," he told CNBC.

Tesla fell 0.7 percent after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation into the automaker's Full Self-Driving software. Oracle rose over 3 percent on Thursday after TD Cowen projected the software giant could post revenue and earnings far above market expectations by 2030.

While markets broadly expect the Federal Reserve to make two additional rate cuts at its remaining meetings this year, Fed Governor Michael Barr said Thursday he remains concerned that inflation could persist and warned that policymakers cannot be complacent about returning inflation to the central bank's 2 percent target. ■