By Caroline Valetkevitch
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks edged lower on Tuesday afternoon after the Dow and S&P 500 managed to touch fresh intraday records for a fifth straight session in early trading.
Among the S&P 500's biggest percentage decliners, the stock of Juniper Networks fell 3.8 percent, a day after the company's chief executive resigned following a board review of his conduct in a negotiation with a customer.
Shares of Alibaba were down 3.4 percent, retracing recent gains. The e-commerce giant reported more than $9 billion in sales on China's Singles' Day on Tuesday.
The benchmark S&P index had set its 39th new closing high for the year on Monday, versus 45 such highs in 2013. The last time the index closed at a record for four consecutive days was in June, while its last five-day streak was in May 2013.
The benchmark has rallied more than 9 percent from a six-month low in October, buoyed by supportive economic data and solid corporate earnings reports. For the year, the index is up over 10 percent.
"We have come pretty far, pretty fast. I wouldn't be surprised to see the market consolidate a little, in the form of hovering around here or pulling back a little bit," said David Lebovitz, global market strategist at J.P. Morgan Funds in New York.
At 1:49 p.m., the Dow Jones industrial average fell 16.53 points, or 0.09 percent, to 17,597.21, the S&P 500 lost 1.74 points, or 0.09 percent, to 2,036.52 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.26 points, or 0.03 percent, to 4,650.36.
Among the day's gainers, D.R. Horton rose 1.4 percent. The largest U.S. homebuilder reported better-than-expected quarterly revenue and said orders jumped 38 percent, suggesting an uptick in housing demand.
There were no U.S. government economic reports on Tuesday due to the U.S. Veterans Day holiday, which also served to keep volume light.
Cable providers remained under pressure for a second straight session after U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday that Internet service providers should be regulated more like public utilities. Comcast was down 0.7 percent.
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by 1,651 to 1,338, for a 1.23-to-1 ratio on the downside; on the Nasdaq, 1,497 issues fell and 1,127 advanced for a 1.33-to-1 ratio favoring decliners.
(Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Nick Zieminski)
