US stocks closed lower on Thursday with high volatility and the dollar index continuing to climb.

The Dow Jones was down 23 points to end at 34,577, as the blue-chip index snapped a five-day winning streak.

The S&P 500 fell 15 points to 4,192. Tesla plummeted 5.5% after reports indicated that the electric carmaker's orders in China almost halved to 9,800 in May, from more than 18,000 in April.

The Nasdaq was off 141 to 13,614 with AMC Entertainment plummeting a massive 18% as the movie theater chain said it sold shares, taking advantage of its stock price soaring in recent days with internet memes. Blackberry, another meme stock, saw a 3.9% gain.

Investors turned toward Treasury notes and the dollar as safer bets in a highly volatile session.

The VIX volatility index gained around 10% at one point to as high as 19.27 before settling to 18.04 -- a 3.2% gain at the close of markets.

The yield on the 10-year US Treasury was up 2.3% to 1.628%. The dollar index, which shows the strength of the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, continued its increase -- adding 0.6% to 90.48./aa