国际英语新闻：Wall Street falls on Portugal downgrade, downbeat home sales

NEW YORK, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Wall Street fell on Wednesday after Portugal was downgraded by a major rating agency on budget concerns and U.S. new home sales unexpectedly fell in February.

Fitch Ratings downgraded Portugal's long-term credit rating to AA- from AA on Wednesday because of its "significant budgetary underperformance in 2009."

The downgrade hit European stocks and also dragged the euro to a 10-month low against the U.S. dollar.

Meanwhile, sales of new homes fell unexpectedly to their lowest point on record in February.

The news came on the heels of a third straight monthly drop in existing home sales, showing the battered housing market was still struggling to recover.

According to the Commerce Department, new home sales fell 2.2 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted 308,000 units while economists were expecting a rise.

Earlier, a report from the Commerce Department showed new orders for durable goods rose for a third straight month in February and inventories posted their biggest gain since December 2008.

The data showed manufacturing remains a source of strength for the economic recovery, but the 0.5-percent increase in orders was slightly below economists' estimate.

Shares of Bank of America, the largest U.S. bank in terms of assets, rose 2.57 percent to 17.57 dollars after the company said it would offer about 3 billion dollars in loan forgiveness to about 45,000 troubled homeowners.

The plan, to begin in May, is the first by a U.S. mortgage lender to take a systematic approach to reducing mortgage principal to tackle the thorny issue of preventing foreclosures.

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 52.68, or 0.48 percent, to 10,836.15. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 6.45, or 0.55 percent, to 1,167.72 and the Nasdaq was down 16.48, or 0.68 percent, to 2,398.76.