Wall Street edges lower on dollar bounce
U.S. stocks dipped on Tuesday as a move higher in the dollar pressured commodity prices and investors weighed the potential for some consolidation in equities after a recent run-up.
The dollar edged off three-year lows as a buildup of bets to sell the currency, based on loose U.S. monetary policy, ran out of steam. The dollar index <.DXY>, measured against a basket of major currencies, was last up 0.3 percent.
Brent crude fell 1.3 percent to $123.53 a barrel, and U.S. crude futures shed 1.1 percent to $112.31. The S&P energy index <.GSPE> lost 1.2 percent.
Gold slipped Tuesday from record highs above $1,570 an ounce. The NYSEArca gold bugs index <.HUI> dipped 1.7 percent.
A rise in the greenback saps interest in U.S. dollar-priced commodities as they become more expensive.
Some of the markets were getting a little overdone, said Frank Lesh, a futures analyst and broker at FuturePath Trading LLC in Chicago.
Markets gets overbought, dollar is oversold -- yes. You've got a corrective bounce of the dollar coming, it's not a change in trend by any means.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> dropped 10.25 points, or 0.08 percent, to 12,797.11. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.SPX> slipped 2.79 points, or 0.20 percent, to 1,358.43. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.IXIC> shed 4.93 points, or 0.17 percent, to 2,859.15.
Pfizer Inc
fell 2.4 percent to $20.52 after the drugmaker reported lower-than-expected quarterly revenue.
MasterCard Inc <ma.n> rose 3.4 percent to $284.62 after the world's second-largest credit card processing network posted a 24 percent jump in quarterly profit.
At 10 a.m. EST, the Commerce Department releases March factory orders. Economists forecast a 1.9 percent rise, compared with a 0.1 percent drop in February.
(This story was corrected to show in 5th paragraph that dollar rise makes commodities more expensive)
(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)
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