Wall Street pulled back today, losing momentum from last week’s gains after news that sales of existing homes slipped in July for a fifth straight month stirred concerns about the strength of the economy.

Sales of existing homes slowed to their most sluggish pace in nearly five years, while home prices fell for a record 12th straight month. The National Association of Realtors reported that existing home sales slipped by 0.2% in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.75 million units. Inventories rose 5.1% to a record 4.59 million units.

The stock market’s pullback perhaps wasn’t unexpected given last week’s rally and that Wall Street is still trying to sort out concerns about failing mortgages and tighter access to credit for both individuals and corporations.

A fresh round of buyout news might have acted to limit the stock market’s losses today, which were small compared with the triple-digit plunges the Dow Jones industrials suffered in early August.

“I think there is still a little bit of nervousness about the credit market but that seems to be abating slowly,” an investment strategist for ING Investment Management, Brian Gendreau, said. “We had a very strong week last week and I wouldn’t attribute this downmarket to any return to panic,” he said, referring to concerns about bad loans and a drying up of liquidity that upset markets in recent weeks. “I think it’s just a normal down day.”

The Dow fell 56.74, or 0.42%, to 13,322.13.

Broader stock indicators also declined. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 12.58, or 0.85%, to 1,466.79, and the Nasdaq composite index fell 15.44, or 0.60%, to 2,561.25.

Bond prices rose, with the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note falling to 4.57% from 4.62% late Friday. Bond prices move opposite their yields.

Last week was a strong one for the markets following weeks of volatility. The Dow finished up 2.29% for the week, the S&P 500 advanced 2.31%, and the Nasdaq jumped 2.86%.

Mr. Gendreau contends investors last week gained a sense that the subprime and credit market problems weren’t necessarily going to sink the economy.

That realization, however, makes the likelihood of an interest rate cut at the Federal Reserve’s next meeting less certain than it might have appeared two weeks ago, he said. Mr. Gendreau noted the Fed has “gone out of its way” to add liquidity, doing so again today with a $9.5 billion short-term injection into the banking system.

“The big question is whether the market will accept that as an adequate Fed response. What if the market doesn’t get a rate cut? I think that won’t be the end of the world.”

Investors faced such questions today amid fresh signals that there still seems to be an appetite for corporate dealmaking. U.S. Steel Corp. said it would buy Canada’s Stelco Inc. for about $1.1 billion; Swiss electrical engineer ABB Ltd. said it will sell its oil and gas production plant to Chicago Bridge & Iron NV for $950 million; and Taiwanese computer vendor Acer Inc. said it will acquire American computer maker Gateway Inc. for $710 million.

But it’s possible the huge buyout sums seen earlier in the year, which drove the Dow to record highs last month, might slip as debt becomes more difficult to take on. The Home Depot Inc. has tentatively agreed to sell its wholesale distribution business to private equity firms for $8.5 billion, a person with direct knowledge of the situation said yesterday, which is $1.8 billion less than originally planned. The deal includes Home Depot guaranteeing $1 billion of the debt the buyers will take on to complete the transaction.

Home Depot shares rose 57 cents to $35.25 on the tentative deal.

Gateway surged 61 cents, or 50%, to $1.82 after news it was being acquired by Acer.

News of tie-ups among big companies seemed to offer little help to small capitalization stocks. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 9.48, or 1.19%, to 789.45.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers by more than 2 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, where consolidated volume came to a light 2.35 billion shares compared with 2.56 billion shares traded Friday.

The dollar was mixed against other major currencies, while gold prices fell.

Light, sweet crude rose 88 cents to settle at $71.97 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

In Asian trading, Japan’s Nikkei stock average rose 0.32%, while China’s Shanghai Composite Index, which hit record closes every day last week, gained 0.8% to another all-time high. In Europe, Germany’s DAX index fell 0.28% and France’s CAC-40 rose 0.38%. Markets in Britain were closed for a bank holiday.