By Kate Gibson and Laura Mandaro, MarketWatch NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stocks closed mostly lower Wednesday with energy shares hit by Baker Hughes Inc.'s weak forecast and Hewlett-Packard Co.'s restructuring plans dragging on the Dow average. "For the last week, the market has been trading in a sideways type of pattern in attempting to work off some of the overbought condition we've got off the last three weeks or so," said Paul Nolte, managing director at Dearborn Partners in Chicago. "I think we've just gone up too quickly. Yes the economy is improving, but I don't know if it's improving that fast," said Nolte of Wall Street's rapid climb, which has the S&P 500 Index (SPX) up roughly 12% for the year so far. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) dropped 45.57 points, or 0.4%, to 13,124.62, led lower by H-P. Shares in the company fell 2.2% as investors expressed skepticism about a decision to combine its printing and personal computing lines into a single unit. The S&P 500 Index ended down 2.63 points, or 0.2%, to 1,402.89, with energy weighing the most among its 10 sectors. Baker Hughes (BHI) shares slid 5.8%, leading S&P 500 decliners and a selloff in energy-services stocks, after the company's first-quarter projections disappointed. Consumer discretionary and consumer staples stocks edged higher, limiting S&P 500 losses. Netflix (NFLX) shares rose 4.4% after the video-by-mail provider said it would run a horror series next year starring Famke Janssen and Bill Skarsgard as it experiments with original programming. The Nasdaq Composite (RIXF) again outperformed, extending a trend that's lifted the index 18% this year. On Wednesday, the Nasdaq gained 1.17 point, or 0.04%, to 3,075.32. Gains were supported by Google Inc. (GOOG) , the third-biggest Nasdaq component. Heavyweight Oracle Corp. (ORCL) reversed gains, dropping 2.3%, after the business-software company's results late Tuesday. Technology has led the gains in Wall Street's mostly steady rise in 2012. "Call it the Apple effect," said Nolte of the technology giant, which accounts for more than 4% of the S&P 500 and 12% of the Nasdaq Composite. Apple (AAPL) shares ended Wednesday down 0.6% at $602.50. In addition to Apple Inc., its shares up nearly 50% so far this year, Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) started "to do well over the last few months" and International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) "continues to do well," said Nolte. "That is really what has been leading the overall market higher," said Nolte of the three technology companies, which in addition to Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), represent the four biggest weights on the S&P 500. Decliners ran just ahead of advancers on the New York Stock Exchange, where 726 million shares traded. NYSE composite volume was more than 3.5 billion. Wall Street offered virtually no reaction to the National Association of Realtors' report that home sales fell 0.9% in February to 4.59 million versus an upwardly revised 4.6 million in January. The NAR said the January and February levels were the best in five years. "Markets were looking for a very strong print on that statistic because the housing market often underlies economic strength," said Lawrence Creatura, portfolio manager for the Federated Clover Small Value Fund (VSFAX) . The February decline "shed a little bit of rain on investor sentiment," he said. "It's mixed data, typical of the halting recovery we've been having. I don't think anyone expects it will be a smooth ride at this stage." Economic reports in the days ahead include a housing-price index on Thursday and data on single-family homes on Friday.
