Wall Street closing lower Wednesday

U.S. stocks closed lower Wednesday. In U.S. economic news, the Labor Department said that producer prices popped 0.6 percent in April, good for the biggest jump since September 2012. Economists had modeled for a softer increase of 0.2 percent. Investors will get to see whether or not producers passed those higher prices down to customers Thursday when the government releases its consumer price index. In international economic news, European markets closed largely flat. Shares of GlaxoSmithKline moved higher even after China charged a former executive with arranging a bribery scheme. Asian markets closed mixed. In corporate news, Sears Holdings fell almost 6 percent after the company revealed plans to either unload its 51 percent stake in Sears Canada or sell the brand north of the border entirely. The announcement came as Sears struggles to stem the bleeding in its core business. Macy's was flat today after it announced quarterly earnings that topped estimates by a penny, and slightly lagging sales. On the positive side, the company hiked its dividend by 25 percent and boosted share buyback plans by $1.5 billion. Tractor company Deere reported profits and sales that topped forecasts, but the company dimmed its outlook amid declining equipment sales. Sony slumped 7 percent after showing sales rose but projecting a full-year loss of $489 million, its sixth in seven years. The dollar gained ground against the euro and the pound, but lost ground versus the yen. Light sweet crude oil for June delivery added 67 cents to $102.37 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold futures climbed $11.10 to $1,305.90 an ounce. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 101.47, or 0.61 percent, to 16,613.97. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 8.92, or 0.47 percent, to 1,888.53. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index lost 29.54, or 0.72 percent, to 4,100.63.