Weak sales from Wal-Mart and discouraging economic reports resulted in a down day on the stock market.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 42 points to close at 15,233 Thursday, a loss of 0.3 percent. Disney and Wal-Mart led the Dow lower.
The Standard & Poor's 500 fell eight to 1,650, or 0.5 percent. It was only the second loss for the S&P out of the last 11 days.
The Nasdaq fell six points to 3,465, or 0.2 percent.
Wal-Mart blamed higher payroll taxes, bad weather and delayed tax refunds for a sales slump.
Stocks were mixed most of the day, then slid in the last hour of trading.
Three stocks fell for every two that rose on the New York Stock Exchange. Volume was average at 3.5 billion shares.
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