Dow trims losses

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The Dow cut its losses late Wednesday afternoon, but remained under pressure one day after ending at an all-time high, due to Alcoa's earnings miss and other dour corporate news.

News that auto workers went on strike against Chrysler added to the session's weakness.

The Dow Jones industrial average (Charts) lost 0.5 percent with less than 30 minutes left in the session. The broader S&P 500 (Charts) index was barely changed after ending the previous session at a record.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite (Charts) added 0.2 percent, after ending the previous session at a 6-1/2 year high.

The Dow had slipped throughout the morning on Alcoa, and profit warnings in the oil sector, but it fell to its lows of the session after Boeing (Charts, Fortune 500) said that it was delaying the delivery of its first 787 Dreamliner planes by six months, due to assembly problems.

Boeing said the delay won't hit 2007 and 2008 earnings, but investors sent the stock lower anyway.

Other big blue chip decliners included AIG (Charts, Fortune 500), Caterpillar (Charts, Fortune 500), Citigroup (Charts, Fortune 500) and Honeywell (Charts, Fortune 500).

However, the day's retreat was pretty moderate considering the recent run up, said Joseph Saluzzi, co-head of equity trading at Themis Trading.

"We've had a really good run, so it's not surprising to see a bit of a selloff here," he said.

Stocks rallied Tuesday as investors breathed a sigh of relief that the minutes from the last Fed meeting supported hopes for another interest rate cut by the end of the year.

But that euphoria didn't extend to Wednesday's session, particularly after a sluggish start to the third-quarter earnings reporting period.

As is traditional, Dow component Alcoa (Charts, Fortune 500) unofficially began the reporting period when it released results late Tuesday. The aluminum maker said it earned 64 cents per share, up from 62 cents a year earlier and 2 cents short of forecasts. Revenue fell from a year ago, but met forecasts.

Alcoa shares fell 2.5 percent Wednesday.

Lower gas prices in the quarter dragged on oil services firms, with both Valero Energy (Charts, Fortune 500) and Chevron (Charts, Fortune 500) warning that quarterly results will be hurt because the companies earned less from the refineries that fuel gas pumps.

Qwest Communications (Charts, Fortune 500) fell 3 percent in active New York Stock Exchange trading after UBS downgraded the telecom to "neutral" from "buy," Briefing.com reported.

On the upside, Costco (Charts, Fortune 500) reported higher quarterly earnings that topped estimates and said September sales at stores open for a year or more rose more than expected.

Market breadth was negative. On the New York Stock Exchange, losers beat winners by a narrow margin on volume of 920 million shares. On the Nasdaq, decliners beat advancers 8 to 7 on volume of 1.66 billion shares.

In economic news, a government report showed that August wholesale inventories rose a smaller-than-expected 0.1 percent after rising 0.2 percent in the previous month.

Treasury prices rose, lowering the yield on the benchmark 10-year note to 4.63 percent from 4.64 percent late Tuesday. Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions.

COMEX gold for December rose $1.04 to $81.30 an ounce.

U.S. light crude oil for November delivery rose 39 cents to $80.65 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.