NEW YORK, New York - Sellers continued to dominate on Wall Street on Wednesday as prospects for a U.S. trade deal with China this year seemed to worsen.

"The main focus today has been the trade war headlines. That's the proximate reason we sold off," Michael Antonelli, market strategist at Robert W. Baird in Milwaukee told the Reuters Thomson news agency Wednesday.

"The Fed was a non-event in terms of price action," he said.

Antonelli however did not see long term damage to equity markets as a result of the breakdown in negotiations. "Trade headlines, while impacting the market in the short term, don't seem to be impacting it longer term as evidenced by the fact we're near all-time highs even in the absence of any deal," he said.

At the close of trading on Wednesday, the Dow Jones industrials were down 112.93 points or 0.40% at 27,821.09.

The Standard and Poor's 500 lost 11.72 points or 0.38% to 3,108.46.

The Nasdaq Composite fell 43.93 points or 0.51% to 8,526.73.

The U.S. dollar was mixed , losing against the euro which advanced to 1.1074.

The British pound strengthened to 1.2920. The Japanese yen was slightly lower at 108.59. The Swiss franc eased to 0.9908.

The Canadian dollar declined to 1.3306. The Australian dollar slipped to 0.6799, while the New Zealand dollar fell slightly to 0.6415.

On equity markets overseas, the German Dax retreated 0.48%. The FTSE 100 in London fell 0.84%. In Paris, the CAC 40 shed 0.25%.

In Asia, the Nikkei 225 in Japan was down 144.08 points or 0.62% at 23,148.57.

The Australian All Ordinaries lost 85.80 points or 1.24% to 6,828.30.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng was off 204.19 points or 0.75% at 26,889.61.

The Shanghai Composite fell 22.94 points or 0.78% to 2,911.05.