US stocks drifted slightly lower midday Wednesday, as investors took a breather after the S&P 500 capped a six-session winning streak.

At midday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 19.52 points, or 0.12 percent, to 16,494.85. The S&P 500 dropped 1.31 points, or 0.07 percent, to 1,878.24. The Nasdaq Composite Index shed 17.86 point, or 0.43 percent, to 4,143.60.

A burst of key companies released upbeat earnings reports before the opening bell, maintaining the positive tone set by US corporations at the start of a very busy week, which had helped Wall Street rebound from a recent bout of selloff led by high- flying momentum stocks.

Procter & Gamble, the world's largest household products maker, unveiled Wednesday a higher than expected quarterly profit. However, the Dow component's shares went down 0.86 percent to trade at 79.91 US dollars per share at midday.

Two other Dow components, aircraft maker Boeing and chemicals giant Dow Chemical Co, also posted generally upbeat earnings results and saw their shares trading higher on the news. The former added 1.77 percent to 129.81 dollars at midday, while the latter increased 1.53 percent to 49.69 dollars.

Investors are awaiting first-quarter earnings reports from tech giant Apple Inc. and social networking site Facebook Inc. due out after Wednesday's close.

About 28 percent of the S&P 500 companies have reported first- quarter earnings, among which 65.2 percent of the firms have reported earnings above analyst expectations while 53.6 percent have released revenue above market forecast, according to Thomson Reuters latest data.

Adding downward pressure to the market, sales of new single- family houses in the United States slumped 14.5 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 384,000 in March, the lowest level in eight months, said the Commerce Department Wednesday. The fresh figure was far below analysts' expectations.

US manufacturers indicated a strong start to the second quarter of 2014, with the Markit Flash Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index coming out at 55.4 in April, edging down fractionally from 55.5 in March, but still well above the neutral 50 value.