Stocks slip on economic news

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Stocks slipped Wednesday morning, as investors mulled the morning's economic news, including mostly in-line reports on the services sector of the economy and private sector employment.

The Dow Jones industrial average (Charts), the tech-fueled Nasdaq composite (Charts) and the broader S&P 500 (Charts) index all slipped almost 90 minutes into the session.

Stocks ended mixed Tuesday after a tough session in which dismal news about auto sales and the housing sector caused investors to pause after the previous day's rally.

That sense of investor reluctance remained Wednesday morning, ahead of a slew of economic news due over the next few days.

Payroll services company ADP estimated that the private sector added about 58,000 jobs in September, roughly in line with forecasts for 60,000.

The mostly in-line report seemed to suggest that Friday's more market-moving government report could be close to forecasts as well.

Economists expect employers added around 100,000 jobs to their payrolls in the month, after reporting a drop in payrolls last month of 4,000. The unemployment report, generated by a different survey, is expected to have risen to a 4.7 percent annualized rate from a 4.6 percent rate in August.

Ahead of that, another report Wednesday showed that about 37 percent of job cuts in September were connected to the housing slump, according to a survey released by consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

And the Institute for Supply Management's report on the services sector of the economy fell to 54.8 in September from 55.8 in August, versus forecasts for a drop to 55.0 in the month.

Among stock movers, semiconductors were especially weak following Micron Technology (Charts, Fortune 500)'s earnings report, released late Tuesday.

The memory chip maker reported a quarterly loss after having reported a profit a year ago, due to the impact of lower prices for its products. The quarterly loss was narrower than what analysts had forecasts. Micron also reported higher revenue that was short of forecasts.

Brokerage Morgan Stanley started coverage of Intel (Charts, Fortune 500), Advanced Micro Devices (Charts, Fortune 500) and Nvidia (Charts) with an "underweight" rating, Briefing.com reported. All three chipmakers slipped in the early going.

Other decliners included casinos with exposure to Macau, a region of China, following a dour Morgan Stanley note on September gaming revenue in the region, AP reported. Wynn Casinos (Charts) and Las Vegas Sands (Charts) both slumped in unusually active trading.

On the upside, homebuilders continued to rally for the third day in a row, including Lennar (Charts, Fortune 500), Centex (Charts, Fortune 500) and Toll Brothers (Charts, Fortune 500).

Oil prices were volatile after a mixed weekly oil inventory report. U.S. light crude for November delivery fell 25 cents to $79.80 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, giving up early gains.

COMEX gold for December delivery rose $1 to $737.30 an ounce.

Treasury prices gave up early gains, turning lower. The selloff boosted the yield on the 10-year note to 4.56 percent from 4.53 percent late Monday. Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions.

In currency trading, the dollar fell versus the euro and inched higher versus the yen.