S&P 500 slips, snaps five-day streak of record closes

New York,  : The S&P 500 broke a five-day streak of record closing highs, ending a fairly volatile session lower as the market's recent momentum faded and Apple's shares declined.

The Dow also broke its two-day string of all-time closing highs, but still ended above 15,000.

The length of the recent rally has surprised many investors. Analysts said it's difficult for the upward momentum to continue without further catalysts, such as first-quarter earnings reports, which are nearing an end.

Volume was the highest of the week so far, giving more weight to the day's decline. Much of this year's rally has been on weak volume.

"This market is so stretched to the upside that if we get some little wiggle somewhere, I can easily see us getting back down to 1,580" on the S&P 500, said Stephen Massocca, managing director of Wedbush Equity Management LLC in San Francisco.

Apple (AAPL.O), down 0.9 percent at $456.77, led the declines of both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq, while International Business Machines (IBM.N), down 0.8 percent at $203.24, was the biggest drag on the Dow.

The day's economic data was mostly positive, but failed to give much of a boost to stocks. The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell last week to the lowest level in almost 5-1/2 years - contrary to economists' forecast of a gain - U.S. Labor Department data showed.

The Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI) fell 22.50 points, or 0.15 percent, to end at 15,082.62. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index (.SPX) declined 6.02 points, or 0.37 percent, to finish at 1,626.67. The Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC) slipped 4.10 points, or 0.12 percent, to close at 3,409.17.

After the bell, shares of Priceline (PCLN.O) fell 3.3 percent to $713 after the online travel agency forecast second-quarter profit would fall below analysts' estimates.

Despite the declines for the day, both the Dow and the S&P 500 reached all-time intraday highs - with the Dow touching 15,144.83 and the S&P 500 reaching 1,635.01.

The market, which had been down slightly from the opening bell through midday, reversed course and began to edge higher in early afternoon. Stocks gave up those gains later in the session.

Limiting the S&P 500's loss, News Corp (NWSA.O) shares gained 4.5 percent to $33.29. It reported earnings that beat expectations while revenue rose 14 percent. Rupert Murdoch's media company also said it was on track to split off its slow-growing publishing business by the end of June.

Among other top advancers, Tesla Motors Inc (TSLA.O) surged 24.4 percent to $69.40 a day after posting adjusted earnings that were three times what analysts were expecting as the company sold more cars than it had initially forecast.

Shares of Barnes & Noble Inc (BKS.N) shot up 24.3 percent to $22.08, after hitting a fresh 52-week high of $22.25. The stock's sharp advance followed a report by web publication TechCrunch that Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) was considering an offer to acquire all of Nook Media's digital assets for $1 billion. Microsoft shares slipped 1 percent to $32.66.

Both Barnes & Noble and Tesla Motors have been among favorite stocks to short, and their gains were likely extended by traders who were forced to cover bets the stocks would fall in order to prevent further losses.

Volume was roughly 6.4 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, matching the average daily closing volume this year.

Decliners outnumbered advancers on the NYSE by a ratio of nearly 2 to 1 and on the Nasdaq, about three stocks fell for every two that rose.

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