Wall St to retreat from record highs at open

By Chuck Mikolajczak

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks were set for a lower open on Wednesday, putting major indexes on track to retreat a day after the Dow and S&P 500 closed at record highs for a fifth straight session.

Financial companies will be in focus after global regulators fined five major banks - including UBS AG, HSBC Holdings Plc and Citigroup Inc - $3.4 billion for failing to stop their traders from trying to manipulate the foreign exchange market. Citigroup shares dipped 0.6 percent to $53.49 before the opening bell.

"The imposition of fines by the watchdog basically weighed on European bank stocks, and as a result the market is following suit here," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital in New York.

"It’s a market that could certainly use a little bit of a rest and a pullback, and that would be healthy from a technical aspect."

Tuesday's record close for the S&P 500 marked its 40th new closing high for the year, versus 45 in 2013. The last time the index closed at a record high for five straight days was in May 2013, with the next longest streak being an 8-day run in June 1997. The Dow is on a 6-day winning streak, its longest run since June.

The S&P 500 has rallied more than 9.5 percent from a six-month low in October, buoyed by supportive economic data and solid corporate earnings. For the year so far, the index is up 10.4 percent.

S&P 500 e-mini futures were down 6.75 points and fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract, indicated a flat open. Dow Jones industrial average e-mini futures fell 63 points and Nasdaq 100 e-mini futures lost 11.25 points.

As earnings season draws to a close, Thomson Reuters data through Tuesday morning showed that of 449 companies in the S&P 500 reporting, 74.6 percent beat expectations, above the 63 percent average beat rate since 1994 and 67 percent for the past four quarters. Earnings overall were expected to grow 10 percent over the year-ago period.

Macy's Inc shares reversed initial losses in premarket and turned higher, up 1.8 percent to $59.65 after the retailer posted third-quarter earnings and revised its full-year outlook. Cisco Systems Inc is scheduled to post results after the close.

In a light day for economic data, a report on wholesale inventory for September is due at 10 a.m. EST (1500 GMT). Expectations call for a 0.2 percent rise versus the 0.7 percent increase in the prior month.

Susquehanna Bancshares Inc surged 33.6 percent to $13.23 in premarket after the company agreed to be acquired by BB&T Corp for about $2.5 billion.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by W Simon, JS Benkoe and Nick Zieminski)