NEW YORK, New York - U.S. stocks initially extended their rally on Wednesday but in the end sellers got the upper hand.

"Broadly, yesterday and today strike me as kind of just a typical relief rally after the really aggressive downside from last week," Ross Mayfield, investment strategy analyst at Baird told CNBC Wednesday.

"Nothing meaningful has shifted as we tried to search for where the actual bottom of this bear market is."

The Dow Jones retreated 47.12 points or 0.15 percent to 30,483.13.

The Nasdaq Composite dropped 16.22 points or 0.15 percent t to 11,053.08.

The Standard and Poor's 500 slipped 4.90 points or 0.13 percent to 3,759.89.

The U.S. dollar lost steam Wednesday. The euro scrambled back up to 1.0567 by the New York close. The British pound gained to 1.2263. The Japanese yen was only slightly higher at 136.33. The Swiss franc edged up to 0.9618.

The Canadian dollar rose to 1.2933. The Australian dollar strengthened to 0.6931. The New Zealand dollar was in demand at 0.6287.

On overseas equity markets, in London, the FTSE 100 closed down 0.88 p[recent. The Dax in Germany was off 1.11 percent. In Paris, France the CAC 40 retreated 0.91 percent.

On Asian markets, the biggest loser percentage-wise on Wednesday was South Korea's Kospi Composite which dived 66.12 points or 2.74 percent to 2,342.81.

Not far behind was the Hang Seng in Hong Kong, which closed down 551.25 points or 2.56 percent at 21,008.34.

In Japan, the Nikkei 225 slid 96.76 points or 0.37 percent to 26,149.55.

Australia's All Ordinaries retreated 18.80 points or 0.28 percent to 6,682.30.

In China, the Shanghai Composite fell 39.52 points or 1.20 percent to 3,267.20.

New Zealand's S&P/NZX 50 dropped 22.92 points or 0.21 percent to 10,678.67.