Crude oil futures moved higher after the Energy Department's latest weekly petroleum inventory report showed a dropoff in the nation's crude reserves, while reports of explosions in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh prompted a sharp rise on top of that. A barrel of light crude settled at $43.64, up $1.87, on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The dollar fell to its fifth straight record low against the euro — good news, in the short term, for American exporters and tourism, but problematic for inflation should the dollar fail to gain ground in the long term.

"I think you're definitely seeing some money being moved off the table today," said Steve Neimeth, senior vice president and portfolio manager at AIG SunAmerica. "But the economic data we've seen over the past month has been positive, and there's a lot of reasons to stay optimistic."

According to preliminary calculations, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 25.35, or 0.2 percent, to 10,829.19.

Broader stock indicators were fractionally lower. The Standard & Poor's 500 index was down 0.09, or 0.01 percent, at 1,213.45, and the Nasdaq composite index lost 0.19, or 0.01 percent, to 2,177.00.

All three major indexes reached 3›-year highs yesterday as Wall Street extended its "Santa Claus" rally. However, with many investors on the sidelines during the holidays, speculative traders could swing the markets in any direction, and analysts said it would be difficult to determine any short-term trends for Wall Street until next week.

Wall Street received some good news from the National Association of Realtors, which said sales of existing homes totaled 6.94 million units in November, up from 6.76 million in October and far surpassing economists' expectations of 6.75 million homes. The figures made up for a disappointing report on new home construction last week, which fell far short of expectations.

"The housing numbers were nice, but again, that was for November. We had a very cold December, and that could weigh on housing once we get into next month," said Bryan Piskorowski, market analyst at Wachovia Securities. "And trading is very thin this week because we're between holidays, so you can't read anything into it."