Wall Street retreats from record highs in closing

Wall Street saw its prior gains vanish with benchmark indexes retreating actually from record highs as concern grew that the Federal Reserve will scale back its stimulus efforts if the labor market continues to improve.

Although the Chairman attested earlier the day that: “A premature tightening of monetary policy could lead interest rates to rise temporarily but would also carry a substantial risk of slowing or ending the economic recovery and causing inflation to fall further”

And earlier the day some sentiments of optimism were spread as sales of previously owned U.S. homes climbed in April to the highest level in more than three years as housing continued to gain momentum even if the reading came in below than forecasts.

In fact the world`s leading economy existing home sales for April came in at 4.97 million units higher or 0.6 percent; slightly below the market forecasts of 4.99 million or 1.4 percent.

Accordingly as the local stock market closed at 16:15 New York time, the Dow Jones shed by 0.52% or 80.41 points to 15307.20, the S&P plummeted by 0.83% or 13.81 points to 1655.35 and finally the Nasdaq Composite plunged by 1.11% or 38.82 points to 3463.30.