NEW YORK, New York - A major fall in the rail freight giant CSX Corp and continuing trade tensions weighed on Wall Street on Wednesday.

The gloom has spready globally with most indices around the world losing ground on Wednesday.

"One of the things Trump is doing with trade is he's using it as a cudgel against the Fed," Ed Campbell, portfolio manager and managing director at QMA in Newark, New Jersey told Reuters Thomson on Wednesday. "The Fed is citing uncertainty relating to trade as a reason they're open to cutting rates."

The speculation about the Fed easing cut into the dollar in U.S. trading on Wednesday. Earlier in Asia most currencies fell, particularly the British pound which dropped below the crucial 1.2400 level. Later in U.S. trading however the greenback lost ground.

At the close Wednesday, the Dow Jones industrials were down 115.78 points or 0.42% at 27,219.85.

The Nasdaq Composite fell 37.59 points or 0.46% to 8,185.21.

The Standard and Poor's 500 shed 19.62 poinmts or 0.65% to 2,984.42.

The euro rose to 1.1224, while the British pound recovered to 1.2435. The Japanese yen strengthened to 108.06, while the Swiss fran firmed to 0.9867.

The Canadian dollar rose to 1.3048. The New Zealand dollar gained to 0.6734, while the Australian dollar was unchanged compared to its close in Asia at 0.7011.

In overseas markets, the FTSE 100 in London lost 0.55%. The German Dax fell 0.72%, while the Paris-based CAC 40 was off 0.76%.

In Asian markets, in Japan, the Nikkei 225 weakened by 66.07 points or 0.31% to 21,469.18.

China's Shanghai Composite lost 5.92 points or 0.20% to 2,931.69.

The Australian All Ordinaries jumped 28.20 points or 0.42% to 6,764.00.