Wall St slips as eyes turn to Fed

Traders Jason Harper, left, and Gregory Rowe work the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. File photo / AP

Wall Street slipped overnight, pushing the Dow and the S&P 500 down from their record-high closes the previous day, as investors awaited guidance on the timing of an interest rate increase by the US Federal Reserve.

The Fed is set to release minutes from its October meeting at 2 pm in Washington.

"Investors will screen the minutes for any fresh hints about the fights between the doves and the hawks at the Fed and the pace of the future rate path," Ralf Zimmermann, an equity strategist at Bankhaus Lampe in Dusseldorf, Germany, told Bloomberg News.

In afternoon trading in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.08 per cent, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 0.27 per cent, while the Nasdaq Composite Index declined 0.48 per cent. All three benchmarks pared earlier losses.

US Treasuries also fell ahead of the minutes. Yields on the five-year note rose five basis points to 1.65 per cent in midday trading in New York.

Declines in shares of Verizon Communications and those of Microsoft, down 1.4 per cent and 1.2 per cent respectively, outweighed gains in shares of Home Depot and those of Boeing, each up 1.1 per cent.

Shares of some US retailers jumped amid better-than-expected earnings. Shares of Staples soared 9.1 per cent, while those of Target climbed 7.2 per cent.

"Once we get through Thanksgiving (later this month) the focus will be on the consumer and retail sales," KC Mathews, the Kansas City-based chief investment officer at UMB Bank, told Bloomberg News. "If you have a good holiday spending season it validates the health of the consumer and sets us up for some momentum in 2015."

Shares of Lowe's rallied 6.6 per cent after the home improvement chain upgraded its earnings forecasts.

"We are pleased with our performance, and continue to be cautiously optimistic about the home improvement landscape," Robert Niblock, Lowe's CEO, said in a statement.

The latest housing data underpinned that optimism.

Starts for US single-family homes advanced 4.2 per cent to a 696,000 annualised rate in October, the most since November 2013, Commerce Department data showed. Meanwhile, building permits climbed 4.8 per cent to a 1.08 million-unit rate, the highest in more than six years.

"Housing activity continues to recover, although the pace of the recovery remains slower than in the previous couple of years, owing to the decline in housing affordability," Blerina Uruci, an economist at Barclays in New York, told Reuters.

In Europe, the Stoxx 600 edged lower to end the session at 339.15.

The UK's FTSE 100 Index slipped 0.2 per cent. France's CAC 40 added 0.1 per cent, while Germany's DAX gained 0.2 per cent.