Wall St ends six-day rally

Stocks on Wall Street fell, with the S&P 500 index snapping a six-session streak of gains, its longest rally since December 2010.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 37.90 points, or 0.3%, to 13,170.05.

Alcoa, down 1.6%, and Cisco Systems, down 1.1%, posted the biggest retreats among Dow components.

Energy and materials shares in the S&P 500, which gained the most of the index's 10 sectors last week, suffered the steepest retreats.
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The broad index slipped 0.1% to 1404.19, ending a six-day stretch, the longest since mid-December 2010.

The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 1.7 points to 3022.52.

Most European stock markets finished lower. The Stoxx Europe 600 index fell 0.4% to 268.72.

The UK's FTSE 100 declined 0.3% to 5831.88, Germany's DAX slipped 0.5% to 6909.68, and France's CAC 40 fell 0.3% to 3426.41.

Asian markets were mostly lower on slower-than-expected growth in Japan's economy and mounting evidence of a worsening slowdown in China.

The Japanese economy grew at a weaker-than-expected annualised pace of 1.4% in the April-to-June quarter, well below expectations of 2.7%.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch lowered its 2012 annual GDP growth forecast for China to 7.7% from 8.0%.

The Nikkei retreated 0.1% to 8885.15, while South Korea's Kospi posted its first decline in six sessions, down 0.7% to 1932.44.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.1% to 4283.3.

Commodities: Oil mixed,  gold down
Tight supplies of crude from Europe's North Sea boosted the price of Brent futures while US oil prices fell.

The pair rarely diverge in price direction. But traders pushed Brent prices higher as a heavy schedule of maintenance will crimp the region's production next month, especially at Nexen's 200,000 barrel-a-day Buzzard field.

Brent oil futures for September were up 58USc to $US113.53 a barrel while the front-month US contract settled down 12USc at $US93.03.

Gold futures fell along with stocks and other commodities they have tended to follow.

Gold for December delivery declined $US10.20, or 0.6%, to settle at $US1612.60 an ounce in New York.

Currencies: Euro rises above $US1.23
The euro advanced against the US dollar and the yen.

Growth-sensitive currencies such as the Australian dollar broadly fell in response to reignited fears of a global slowdown.

The euro bucked the trend, rising above $US1.23 against the dollar and advancing more than 0.4% against the yen.

Traders are anticipating a slew of economic data releases. The eurozone, Germany and France will report second-quarter gross domestic product growth while the US will release July retail sales figures.

The euro was at $US1.2336 from $US1.2290 late on Friday and up to ¥96.640 from ¥96.23.