By Caroline Valetkevitch
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks were down slightly early Wednesday afternoon, retreating from the previous session's record closing highs on the S&P 500 and Dow, with investors cautious ahead of minutes from the most recent Federal Reserve meeting.
Tech names were among the biggest drags on the market, with shares of Microsoft down 1 percent, weighing on both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq.
Helping to limit losses, Target Corp rose 6.8 percent and Lowe's rose 6.3 percent, both after results.
The Fed is set to publish minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee's October policy meeting at 2:00 p.m. EST (1900 GMT). They are expected to show the Fed's path is diverging from other major central banks that are increasing stimulus. This view has helped strengthen the U.S. dollar, weighing on crude oil and other commodity prices.
"I can understand the market being a bit jittery here after making a new high and pausing ahead of the Fed minutes," said Paul Zemsky, chief investment officer of Multi-Asset Strategies and Solutions at Voya Investment Management.
Goldman Sachs analysts on Wednesday said the Fed, once it begins to tighten monetary policy, would raise short-term interest rates faster and to higher levels than current market expectations.
At 12:59 p.m., the Dow Jones industrial average fell 11.27 points, or 0.06 percent, to 17,676.55, the S&P 500 lost 4.54 points, or 0.22 percent, to 2,047.26 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 19.17 points, or 0.41 percent, to 4,683.28.
The largest percentage gainer on the S&P 500 was Staples, up 9.3 percent, while the largest decliner was Avon Products, down 4.9 percent, a day after a management restructuring.
On the Nasdaq 100, the largest gainer was Staples, while the largest decliner was Tesla Motors, down 3.7 percent.
Among other big movers, shares of JetBlue Airways rose 4.3 percent after it said it will charge certain customers for their first checked bag.
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE 1,858 to 1,121, for a 1.66-to-1 ratio; on the Nasdaq, 1,772 issues fell and 863 advanced for a 2.05-to-1 ratio.
The benchmark S&P 500 index was posting 26 new 52-week highs and three new lows; the Nasdaq Composite was recording 37 new highs and 61 new lows.
(additional reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Nick Zieminski)