US open: Stocks slide on oil prices, housing data

US stocks dropped on Wednesday as oil prices fell and data on the housing market missed forecasts.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.10% to 18,528.22 points, the S&P 500 dropped 0.11% to 2,184.49 while the Nasdaq dipped 0.02% to 5,259.25 points at 1507 BST.

Oil prices were also under the cosh after official data from the Energy Information Administration showed US weekly crude increased by 2.5m barrels last week to 523.6m barrels. It followed a report from the American Petroleum Institute, which showed an increase of 4.5m barrels in US crude stockpiles last week.

West Texas Intermediate crude declined 1.3% to $47.47 per barrel and Brent fell 0.66% to $49.63 per barrel at 1538 BST.

On the economic data front, the US Federal Housing Finance Agency's house price index rose 0.2% in June after a 0.2% gain in May, which was slightly weaker than the 0.3% expected.

Separately, the National Association of Realtors said sales of existing US homes fell more than expected in July. Sales were down 3.2% to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 5.39m, missing expectations for a much smaller drop of 0.4%.

Compared to a year ago, sales were down 1.6%.

Meanwhile, the median price for an existing home was up 5.3% from July last year to $244,100.

Looking ahead, the market is highly anticipating the Federal Reserve’s annual conference in Jackson Hole on Friday with chair Janet Yellen’s speech to be closely eyed for any remarks on interest rates.

“While the message coming from Fed officials has been quite mixed and left the markets with little idea of what the Fed is planning –it initially intended to raise rates four times this year and so far it hasn’t done so once – the message from Stanley Fischer and William Dudley, both permanent voters on the FOMC, last week were quite hawkish,” said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda.

“Should Yellen deliver an equally hawkish warning on Friday then I expect markets to respond accordingly, with December likely becoming the most likely meeting but September being more priced in that it currently is.”

In corporate news, Pfizer shares edged higher after agreeing to buy AstraZeneca’s antibiotics division.

La-Z-Boy slumped after its first-quarter earnings and sales late on Tuesday missed analysts’ expectations.

Intuit Inc. shares dropped after the software company’s revenue forecast left investors disappointed late on Tuesday, despite better-than-expected fourth-quarter results.

Express Inc. tanked after the fashion retailer reported second quarter results that missed analysts’ expectations.