Energy, mining stocks lead an early decline on Wall Street

London equities lost 0.6 percent, Paris 0.5 percent and Frankfurt 1.1 percent in its last day of trade for 2015.

The U.S. oil benchmark traded around 2.5% lower (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/crude-prices-fall-on-indications-of-a-big-us-supply-jump-2015-12-30), while Brent crude fell about 1.7%. The “highlight for the day” will be the EIA report on crude supplies, he added.

There is “only one thing” on the minds of traders on Wednesday, and that’s “the commodity market and how it will pan out next year”, said Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at AvaTrade, in a note.

“We don’t think that’s the case, but we think that’s what’s weighing on the market today”, Christopher said.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index lost 10 points, or 0.5 percent, to 2,050. The Nasdaq composite declined 16 points, or 0.4 percent, to 5,030.

Wall Street rose sharply on Tuesday, elevating the S&P 500 to a modest gain for the year as Amazon and Apple led tech stocks higher. It’s down 39 percent this year.

The three major indexes were headed lower from the start of regular trading on Monday and didn’t shift out of negative territory the rest of the day.

Chevron fell $1.69 to $90.36, while Exxon Mobil lost 59 cents, or 0.7 percent, to $78.74. Stocks of oil and gas companies have tumbled in tandem, dragging the S & P 500’s energy sector down 23 per cent so far in 2015.

Pep Boys dropped 3 percent after Bridgestone said it wouldn’t counter the latest offer for the company from activist investor Carl Icahn. The stock shed 72 cents to $6.85.

The S&P 500 index showed 29 new 52-week highs and no new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 82 new highs and 46 new lows.

However the DAX in Germany, Europe’s top economy, finished the full year 2015 up 9.6 percent. The stock added $3.68 to $23.05. That sector is the best performer so far this year, up 9.1 percent.

USA stocks moved lower, as tumbling oil prices weighed. Oil is down nearly 40 percent this year. The index remains essentially flat with an increase of 0.2 percent this year. Britain’s FTSE 100 slipped 0.6 percent. The London Stock Exchange remained closed for the holiday break.

Precious and industrial metals prices ended mixed. Gold slipped $7.60 to $1,068.30 an ounce, silver dropped 50 cents to $13.88 an ounce and copper fell five cents to $2.08 a pound. The company’s stock fell $11.97 to $102.14.