Stocks are sliding - Dow off 130

After the Dow and S&P 500 hit all-time highs on Monday and the Nasdaq topped 5,000 for the first time since the height of the tech bubble, stocks are sliding.

Just before noon on Tuesday, the Dow was down 131 points, the S&P 500 was down 15 points, and the Nasdaq was down 42 points.

The economic calendar was quiet on Tuesday, with most of the focus on US auto sales for the month of February, which were disappointing across the board.

Among the notable misses were Ford sales, which declined 2% in February against expectations for a 5% increase.

Fiat Chrysler, Nissan, General Motors, and Honda also each saw sales in February miss expectations, though all of these manufacturers reported sales that increased over the prior year.

In stock news, American Express shares were downgraded at Macquarie, which said the company is simply getting beat by its competition.

Alibaba shares were also down more than 3%, and a report in The Wall Street Journal on Monday said that there are questions surrounding fake customers on the company's Taobao site.

A report in Bloomberg on Tuesday noted that in February, companies in the S&P 500 repurchased a record amount of their shares.

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