US stocks slide with late drop

U.S. stock indexes closed lower Wednesday as investors digested the Federal Reserve\'s Open Market Committee meeting minutes from late July. The minutes said the economy was growing modestly and was expected to pick up in the second half of the year, which would put the Fed close to targets it has chosen to signal time to back off from its accommodating monetary policy. The blue chip Dow Jones industrial average gave up 0.7 percent or 105.44 points to close at 14,897.55, dropping for the sixth consecutive session. The Standard & Poor\'s 500 shed 9.55 points or 0.58 percent to 1,642.80. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index dropped 13.80 points or 0.38 percent and closed at 3,599.79. On the New York Stock Exchange, 841 stocks advanced and 2,236 declined on volume of 2.9 billion shares. In Asia, Japan\'s Nikkei 225 added 0.21 percent or 27.95 points to 13,424.33. In Europe, the FTSE 100 index in Britain gave up 0.97 percent or 62.62 points to 6,390.84. The 10-year U.S. treasury note fell 21/32 to yield 2.895 percent. In after-hours trading, crude oil was off $1.24 to $103.86 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On the Comex division, gold shed $6.20 and closed at $1,366.40 per troy ounce and silver lost 18.3 cents and closed at $22.935. The euro rose against the dollar to $1.3357 while the dollar rose to 97.72 yen.