NEW YORK - Wall Street shares drifted lower in late morning trade Friday, with the market pausing after several days of gains amid underlying support from lower oil prices.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 23.28 points (0.22 percent) to 10,523.04 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq shed 3.92 points (0.19 percent) to 2,014.87 at 1515 GMT.
The broad-market Standard and Poor's 500 index dipped 2.38 points (0.20 percent) to 1,188.76.
The market opened with a positive backdrop as crude oil futures extended their losses -- falling 1.21 dollars to 52.80 dollars a barrel in early trade -- continuing a pullback from all-time high of 58.28 touched Monday.
But some traders were locking in gains after four straight days of gains for the Dow and S and P indexes.
"Obviously, after four days up we're due for a little pause to refresh," said Alfred Goldman, chief market strategist at AG Edwards.
He said any pullbacks would be moderate, however, and expects stocks still could find their way higher by the end of the session.
"We've got a market that has worked off short-term excesses, we've got a market where the mood is one of very cautious optimism -- which is bullish -- and we have the price of oil down so you shake it all up and we're looking for the market to put in day five of the rally today and probably continue into next week."
Merger news was expected to provide support.
ShopKo Stores surged 3.50 or 15 percent to 26.53 after the retail chain agreed to be bought by private equity investment firm Goldner Hawn Johnson and Morrison in a deal valued at one billion dollars, including the assumption of debt.
Time Warner rose 29 cents to 18.17 and Comcast Corp. added 34 cents to 33.29 after the two reportedly reached an agreement to buy Adelphia Communications out of bankruptcy.
The Wall Street Journal said a final deal for the cable giants to pay 12 billion dollars in cash and slightly more than 5.6 billion dollars in stock for a company that would be created out of Adelphia and Time Warner's cable unit for the bankrupt cable operator could be days away.
General Motors shares fell 59 cents to 29.94, leading a broad decline in the auto sector after Deutsche Bank cuts its rating on the stock to sell from hold.
Ford Motor lost 16 cents to 11.14, and DaimlerChrysler shed 46 cents to 42.04.
In telecom, MCI rose seven cents to 25.70 after chief executive Michael Capellas said the door was not closed to an offer from Qwest even though the MCI board reaffirmed its preference for a merger with Verizon.
Qwest added three cents to 3.83 and Verizon dipped five cents to 35.36.
Bonds weakened. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury bond climbed to 4.511 percent from 4.472 percent Thursday and that on the 30-year bond to 4.805 percent from 4.785 percent. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.
04/08/2005 15:40 GMT