Wall Street down again due to a reduction in stimulus speculation

Wall Street down again due to a reduction in stimulus speculation

Stocks on Wall Street closed lower again on Thursday (Friday morning GMT ) , after reporting a better retail sales prompted speculation that the U.S. Federal Reserve may soon withdraw its stimulus program .

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 104.10 points ( 0.66 percent) to 15739.43 , AFP reported .

The broad-based S & P 500 fell 6.72 points ( 0.38 percent) to 1775.50 , while the tech -heavy Nasdaq composite index gave up 5.41 points ( 0.14 percent) to 3998.40 .

Thursday marked the third loss in a row after strong gains throughout the year .

Peter Cardillo , director of investment research at Rockwell Global Capital , linked the drop in the November retail sales report , which showed growth of 0.7 percent , above the 0.6 percent predicted by analysts .

" The market is positioning itself for a reduction in stimulus announcement very likely the Federal Reserve meeting next week , " said Cardillo .

" They had all the evidence it needs to act . "

Retail sales data followed a report on better economic growth and unemployment , said Cardillo . These reports have helped increased speculation the Fed may reduce its bond-purchase program 85 billion dollars per month at its policy meeting next week .

Hotel chain Hilton Worldwide to make successful return to the stock market , rose 7.5 percent to 21.50 U.S. dollars per share on the first day of trading following its IPO price of 20 U.S. dollars per share .

Twitter social networking companies rose 5.7 percent after launching a new form of online advertising through its MoPub platform .

Rival Twitter , Facebook , also scored after a 5.0 percent rise in the S & P 500 announced the company will be added to the prestigious index after the close of trading on Friday .

Oracle technology companies fell 2.8 percent after RBC Capital cut its rating to " sector perform" from " outperform" , citing fierce competition from other cloud computing vendors and shopping concerns in China . Morgan Stanley also lowered Oracle because of uncertain growth prospects .

Network Lululemon Athletica women's sportswear dived 11.7 percent after issuing a disappointing earnings forecast for the fourth quarter . Lululemon projecting profit of 78-80 cents per share , below the 84 cents expected by analysts .

General Motors fell 0.3 percent after announcing it had sold its remaining shares in Ally Financial and French carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroen .

Bond prices fell . The yield on U.S. 10-year bonds rose to 2.88 percent from 2.84 percent on Wednesday , while the 30 - year bond rose to 3.90 percent from 3.88 percent . Prices and bond yields move inversely .