Stocks on both sides of the Atlantic retreated amid more signs of positive US growth, which is encouraging investors to bet on a more hawkish stance on interest rates when the Federal Reserve meets next week.
In late afternoon trading in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.17 per cent, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index inched 0.02 per cent lower and the Nasdaq Composite Index retreated 0.20 per cent.
Wall Street is trading near record highs, bolstered by the Fed's low rates and asset purchases, with the Dow up 4.5 per cent this year and the S&P 500 up 9.5 per cent.
Declines in shares of Merck and those of Nike, down 1.3 and 0.8 per cent respectively, led the Dow lower.
"We are in some kind of corrective phase in the stock market but it's not the end of the world," David Rosenberg, chief economist and strategist of Canadian asset manager Gluskin Sheff, told Reuters, saying that valuations are expensive but not necessarily in bubble territory.