Wall St. falls from records, led by technology stocks

After a fabulous day yesterday and even more fabulous month in February, the market pulled back a bit today to consolidate and ponder, bringing the Dow down 85 points.  Part of it was soft auto sales numbers, attributed to the very harsh wintry February we've now endured for the second consecutive year.  Part of it was just good old fashioned profit taking after reaching landmarks highs.  But most of it was just more fence sitting as investors await a battery of economic reports later this week including the all important payrolls report.  The consensus is that optimism is very high and this was reflected in the slightly lower than average volume of 6.3 billion shares.

Wall St. falls from records, led by technology stocks

BY SINEAD CAREW

DJ:     18,203.37  -85.26      NAS:   4,979.90  -28.20       S&P:    2,107.78  -9.61

NEW YORK Tue Mar 3, 2015 7:49pm EST

(Reuters) - U.S. stocks finished down on Tuesday, a day after the S&P and Dow hit records, and the Nasdaq retreated with technology stocks.

Soft auto sales numbers and Iran commentary also gave some investors pause after a strong run-up for major indexes in February. Traders were also waiting for a slew of economic data later this week, culminating with the monthly payrolls report.

"We just came a little too far fast. It made sense to have little bit of a pullback here," said Brian Lazorishak, portfolio manager at Chase Investment Counsel in Charlottesville, Virginia.

"Given the level of optimism, the overbought condition, we wouldn't be surprised to see at least a couple of days of consolidation," he said.

Technology stocks fell as investors took profits a day after the Nasdaq hit the 5,000 milestone for the first time since the peak of the dot.com bubble in March 2000.

Microsoft Corp MSFT.O weighed most on the Nasdaq and S&P 500 with an 1.4 percent drop to $43.28, followed by a 2.2 percent decline in shares of Cisco Systems CSCO.O, which gave back most of Monday's gains.

Semiconductor chips were some of the worst-hit, with the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index .SOX closing off 1.94 percent after a February gain of more than 12 percent. The S&P 500 technology sector .SPLRCT finished down 0.8 percent

The biggest percentage decliners in the S&P 500 were Micron Technology MU.O, down 5 percent to $29.66, and Applied Materials AMAT.O, which fell 4.5 percent to $24.48.

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI fell 85.26 points, or 0.47 percent, to 18,203.37, theS&P 500 .SPX lost 9.61 points, or 0.45 percent, to 2,107.78 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped 28.20 points, or 0.56 percent, to 4,979.90.

For the second year in a row, tough winter weather slowed U.S. vehicle sales in February, with several automakers missing analysts' projections. U.S.-listed Fiat Chrysler FCAU.N shares fell 3.3 percent to $15.31 while Ford Motor F.N declined 2.4 percent to $16.17.