Oil Slide Pulls Wall Street Back from Record Levels

Wall Street retreated from record levels on Wednesday after a drop in oil prices pressured energy stocks, while shares of Walt Disney surged on its results and an acquisition.

A rally since late June has pushed the S&P 500 up more than 6 percent in 2016 as low interest rates encourage investors to buy U.S. equities, although high valuations are of concern to many.

The energy index fell 1.41 percent, hurt by a drop in oil prices after the U.S. government reported a surprise crude stockpile build.

Exxon Mobil lost 1.75 percent and was the biggest drag on the S&P 500 and the Dow.

"Once we saw inventories this morning, that certainly moved energy far lower and dragged almost everything else down," said Tim Dreiling, regional investment director for The Private Client Reserve of U.S. Bank.

"To grind higher, we do need to see earnings improvement, and that's only going to come from economic improvement," Dreiling said.

The Dow Jones industrial average declined 0.2 percent to finish at 18,495.66 points and the S&P 500 lost 0.29 percent, to 2,175.49 points. The S&P 500 has hit four record intraday highs this month.

The Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.4 percent to 5,204.59.

Six of the 10 major S&P 500 indexes were lower. Trading volume was low in the absence of market-moving information in a traditionally low-volume season.

About 5.92 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, compared with the 6.45 billion daily average over the last 20 sessions.

Shares of Walt Disney rose 1.23 percent after the company late on Tuesday reported results that beat estimates and said it is buying a 33 percent stake in video-streaming firm BAMTech. The stock provided the biggest boost to the S&P 500 and the Dow.

After the bell, Shake Shack reported a weaker-than-expected rise in quarterly sales at established restaurants, sending the burger chain's shares down 8.3 percent.

In regular trade, SunPower shares sank 30 percent after the company swung to a second-quarter loss, lowered its full-year revenue forecast and said it would reorganize its business.

Perrigo dropped nearly 10 percent after reporting a lower-than-expected profit and slashing its earnings forecast.

JD.com jumped 4.65 percent after it reported revenue within its forecast. The stock gave the biggest boost to the Nasdaq.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 1.25-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.89-to-1 ratio favored decliners.

The S&P 500 posted 19 new 52-week highs and two new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 84 new highs and 34 new lows. (By Noel Randewich; Additional reporting by Yashaswini Swamynathan in Bengaluru; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Leslie Adler)