After six days of gains, US stocks ended their rally on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 falling 0.2 percent.
The decline in stocks came as a report on Wednesday showed that new US home sales fell 14.5 percent in March. It was the second consecutive monthly decline and the biggest since July.
The pace of US manufacturing expansion was little changed in April though. A preliminary reading of Markit's US manufacturing PMI for April came out at 55.4, slightly down from 55.5 in March.
The euro area economy showed improvement in April though. A preliminary reading of Markit's composite PMI showed a jump to 54.0 in April, its highest reading since May 2011, from 53.1 in March.
The services index rose to 53.1 in April from 52.2 in March while the manufacturing index rose to 53.3 from 53.0.
China's manufacturing activity also showed an improvement in April. However, the preliminary reading of the HSBC manufacturing PMI showed a rise to just 48.3 this month from 48.0 in March, indicating that the sector remains weak.
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