Stocks are edging back from their record heights on Wall Street, while the price of gold falls again to trim more off its tremendous gain for the year.

The S&P 500 slipped 0.6 per cent but is still sitting within 0.8 per cent of its all-time high, which was set earlier this month. The Dow Jones dropped 211 points, or 0.5 per cent, from its own record set the day before, and the Nasdaq composite was down 1.2 per cent in mid-afternoon trade.

The Australian sharemarket is set to fall, with futures at 4.47am AEDT pointing to a loss of 52 points, or 0.6 per cent, at the open. The ASX lost 0.7 per cent on Wednesday. The Australian dollar was fetching US64.89¢ at 5.15am AEDT.

Netflix dragged the market lower after delivering a weaker profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The

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