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Wall Street slips from record high

US stocks have close lower as investors look ahead to Thursday's meeting of the European Central Bank and Friday's US jobs report.
By · 4 Jun 2014
By ·
4 Jun 2014
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US stocks have closed marginally lower as investors looked ahead to Thursday's meeting of the European Central Bank and Friday's US jobs report.

At the closing bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 21.35 points, or 0.13%, to 16,722.28, while the S&P 500 inched down 0.73 of a point, or 0.04%, to 1,924.24.

The minor losses brought to an end the two-day record streak enjoyed by both indices.

Meanwhile, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index gave up 3.12 points, or 0.07%, to 4,234.08.

US economic data was light ahead of jobs numbers later in the week, with the only release of note being factory orders, which grew at a slower rate in April. The 0.7% lift was marginally above expectations for a rise of 0.5%.

In Europe, eurozone inflation slowed to 0.5% in May, official data showed, further stoking expectations for fresh stimulus Thursday by the ECB amid the threat of deflation.

Briefing.com analyst Patrick O'Hare predicted low-volume trade until Thursday and Friday.

There are "relatively high expectations" for both Thursday's ECB action and Friday's US labour market report for May, O'Hare said.

"Market participants have been positioning for some aggressive easing action by the ECB and are anticipating another month of encouraging nonfarm payroll gains," he said.

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