NEW YORK - Wall Street shares wobbled in early trade Tuesday as investors looked to consolidate some of their hefty gains over the past several sessions.
At 1525 GMT, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 23.63 points (0.22 percent) to 10,499.93 while the tech-heavy Nasdaq index poked into positive territory with a gain of a fractional 0.86 point (0.04 percent) to 2,057.51.
The broad-market Standard and Poor's 500 index edged down 1.01 points (0.08 percent) to 1,192.85.
The market moved off its lows after industry figures showed US existing home sales rose 4.5 percent in April to an all-time record level, suggesting the housing market remains hot.
Investors also were awaiting the minutes of the last Federal Reserve meeting for indications on the thoughts of policymakers on future interest rate moves.
The mood was generally upbeat after a series of strong sessions.
Last week, the Nasdaq tallied its largest point gains since mid-August and on Monday extended those gains with a rise that brought the index to its highest close since March 10.
"With the S and P 500 and Nasdaq at two-month highs and the Nasdaq market having increased for seven consecutive sessions, I think you're likely to see some profit taking," said Michael Sheldon, chief market strategist at Spencer Clark LLC.
Sheldon said although technical indicators show the market is a little bit overbought on a short-term basis but that longer term more gains were likely.
"Barring any dramatic change in the economic or inflation data, it looks like there's probably more upside ahead before this recent move ultimately runs out of gas," he noted.
"Several trends are giving the market a good boost over the near term, and we see more of the same coming for the next month or two," said Bob Dickey at RBC Dain Rauscher.
"The price of oil has broken below the 50-dollar level, and now has support at 48 ... The economic numbers are also being reported as generally benign, with little indication of any kind of strong trend in either direction. Add all this together with the market sentiment that is starting to improve from a heavily bearish condition, and you have the recipe for a good market advance."
Among active shares, Genentech rose 2.93 to 79.53 on news that a study of its drug Lucentis showed that 95 percent of patients with age-related macular degeneration maintained or had improved vision with the investigational drug.
But rival biotech firm Eyetech Pharmaceuticals, which makes a competing drug, plunged 10.51 or 42 percent to 13.46 as Merrill Lynch downgraded the shares, saying Genentech's drug may have better results.
Ford Motor shares lost 16 cents to 10.01 and General Motors fell 47 cents to 32.12 on after Deutsche Bank said it expects the top two US automakers to show another decline in US market share in May.
Raytheon Co. added six cents to 39.11 after it received a contract worth up to three billion dollars for work on the US Navy's next destroyer program. Among other firms in the bidding, Northrop Grumman fell a penny to 55.45 and Lockheed Martin rose 21 cents to 64.93
Bonds strengthened. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury bond fell to 4.040 percent from 4.072 percent Monday and that on the 30-year bond eased to 4.359 percent against 4.387 percent. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.
05/24/2005 15:39 GMT