NEW YORK (AFP) - Wall Street stocks pulled back from records on Wednesday (April 24) following mixed earnings ahead of results from large technology companies.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 0.2 per cent to finish at 26,597.05.
The broad-based S&P 500 also shed 0.2 per cent to close at 2,927.26, as did the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index, which ended at 8,102.01.
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq finished at records on Tuesday following a rally fed by a group of strong earnings reports.
The reports out Wednesday were somewhat weaker and came ahead of much-anticipated results from tech giants such as Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft.
"There might have been some hesitancy to take a position ahead" of tech earnings, said Karl Haeling of LBBW. "It seems like a little pause."
Among companies reporting, Caterpillar slumped 3.1 per cent, Boeing gained 0.4 per cent, AT&T shed 4.1 per cent and eBay won 5.1 per cent.
Anadarko Petroleum surged 11.6 per cent after Occidental Petroleum went public with a proposal to buy the oil company for US$76 a share, topping the US$65 per share agreed by Anadarko and Chevron earlier this month.
Occidental lost 0.6 per cent, while Dow-member Chevron fell 3.1 per cent.
Goldman Sachs dropped 1.8 per cent following a Financial Times report that the US Justice Department was pushing for a guilty plea from the investment bank as part of its criminal probe of Goldman's role in the 1MDB scandal.
