2018.05.2420:01:00UTC+00Wall Street Retreats after Trump Cancels North Korea Summit

U.S. stocks fell on Thursday as a sharp drop in energy-related shares weighed down the broader market. On a brighter note, the three main equity benchmarks closed off the worst levels of the session after President Donald Trump canceled a planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, citing “open hostility” from the country.

News of the cancellation came shortly after the Commerce Department said that it started an investigation into whether automobile imports "threaten to impair the national security" of the United States.

The possibility of additional import taxes isn't likely to help already stressed trade negotiations between the U.S. and countries like Japan, Germany and South Korea, all major participants in the international automobile market.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 75.05 points to end at 24,811.76 by the closing bell, well off a 280-point drop following news of the cancelled summit in Singapore. The S&P 500 was down 0.2 percent at 2,727.76 due to a 1.6 percent drop in energy stocks and a fall in oil prices.

The Nasdaq composite finished largely unchanged as losses in Facebook and Intel counterbalanced gains in Netflix and Adobe.

Earlier, futures were trading higher, boosted by the minutes from this month's Federal Reserve meeting, released Wednesday afternoon. They got credit for lifting stocks late during that session, as the central bank indicated it won't be too aggressive in hiking interest rates.