Stocks Retreat from Record Highs

U.S. stocks opened lower on Wednesday, putting major indexes on track to retreat, as financial companies will be in focus after global regulators fined five major banks $3.4 billion. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lately fell 49.87 points, or 0.28%, to 17,565.03. The S&P 500 was down 5.46 points, or 0.27%, to 2,034.22. The Nasdaq Composite lost 8.49 points, or 0.18%, to 4,652.07.

Regulators in the U.K., U.S. and Switzerland imposed civil penalties of $3.2 billion Wednesday on five banks they said attempted to manipulate the $5.3-trillion-a-day foreign exchange currency-trading market.

Macy’s Inc. (M:US), the largest U.S. department-store chain, posted a 23 percent gain in net income last quarter after the company cut expenses, helping it weather disappointing sales. Net income rose to $217 million, or 61 cents a share, from $177 million, or 47 cents, a year earlier.

BB&T Corp. on Wednesday agreed to buy Susquehanna Bancshares Inc. for about $2.5 billion in cash and stock, a move that will grow the North Carolina bank’s footprint in the mid-Atlantic region.

Dow Chemical Co. (DOW), which is under pressure from activist investor Third Point LLC to improve its performance, raised its dividend and announced another tranche of share buybacks.The fourth-quarter payout will be 42 cents a share, up from 37 cents in the preceding quarter.

Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) said Tuesday it will acquire programmatic video advertising platform Brightroll for $640 million. Yahoo said it will combine its premium desktop and mobile video advertising inventory with Brightroll’s platform to increase the value of advertisements across its various platforms.