Stocks Falter on Housing, Tech

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Stocks closed with modest losses on Wednesday, retreating from Tuesday's 13-month highs, as a downbeat tech sector and slumping housing starts pressured the major indices.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 11 points, or 0.1%, to 10,426. The S&P 500 declined half a point to 1110, as the Nasdaq lost 11 points, or 0.5%, to 2193.

Still, stocks retraced their steps from session lows that found the Dow sliding over 70 points.

Notably,an underwhelming forecast from Autodesk(ADSK Quote) and flat results from Salesforce.com(CRM Quote) were attributed as catalysts for a plunge in tech sector stocks today.

Research In Motion(RIMM Quote) added to the tech decline after BMO Capital downgraded the company to market perform from outperform in the morning.

Hewlett-Packard(HPQ Quote), Intel(INTC Quote) and Cisco(CSCO Quote) also stood out on the Dow's list of top 10 decliners.

Still, the financial sector served as a bright spot in the afternoon, with the KBW Bank Index and the S&P Banking Index gaining 1.4% and 1.1%, respectively. Bank of America(BAC Quote) was helping offset the declines on the Dow, closing up 58 cents, or 3.7%, to $16.35.

The negative day started at the opening bell, as investors soured early on a steady stream of economic reports in the morning. Headlining the fall, housing starts fell short of expectations, declining to a seasonally adjusted 529,000 in October from a revised 592,000 in the prior month. Starts were anticipated to rise to 600,000. Building permits also fell to 552,000 from 575,000 in September, and came in below the 580,000 expected.

Following Tuesday's wholesale price data, the government said the consumer price index rose 0.3% in October, a tick higher than the 0.2% rise expected by many analysts. The inflation measure increased 0.2% in September.