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NEW YORK: US stocks ended mixed on Monday as investors treaded water on the eve of a Federal Reserve monetary policy meeting and digested a new financial reform plan in the Senate.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 17.46 points (0.16 percent) to 10,642.15, extending the blue-chip rally to the fifth session in a row.
The Nasdaq composite slid 5.45 points (0.23 percent) to 2,362.21 while the broad-market Standard & Poor's 500 index ended virtually flat, up 0.52 point (0.05 percent) at 1,150.51.
Senate banking committee chairman Christopher Dodd outlined plans to regulate the massive US banking sector, warning an overhaul was needed to prevent another large-scale crisis that the US economy might not survive.
Briefing.com analysts said that stocks "dipped a bit" as Dodd offered a summary of his proposal for financial reform.
"The proposal called for stringent policies to limit risk imposed on the financial system by major institutions," the analysts said in a client note.
Meanwhile, investors were cautious ahead of the Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee meeting on Tuesday, analysts said.
The FOMC is widely expected to hold the benchmark interest rate at near-zero, but the market will pore over the policymakers' statement for clues on the direction of monetary policy and the economic outlook.
Fred Dickson at DA Davidson & Co. said that investors would scrutinise the central bank's current assessment of the economic recovery.
"Investors will also be looking for signs from the Fed as to their decision making process for de-leveraging its massive balance sheet and beginning to lift interest rates," Dickson said.
Wall Street shrugged off US industrial production data Monday showing a 0.1 percent rise in February, better than the flat reading analysts expected.
Among stocks in focus, soft-drink giant Pepsico rose 1.61 percent to 66.15 dollars after announcing plans to raise its annual dividend by 7.0 percent and repurchase up to 15 billion dollars in its stock.
Phillips-Van Heusen Corp. soared 9.76 percent to 52.40 dollars. The parent of Calvin Klein said it was buying US fashion brand Tommy Hilfiger for 3.0 billion dollars from private-equity investment group Apax Partners.
Falling oil futures prices dented oil majors. ExxonMobil, the Dow's biggest blue-chip, dropped 0.75 percent to 66.30 dollars, while Chevron shed 0.20 percent at 73.57 dollars.
Dominion Resources rose 0.05 percent to 39.71 dollars after it said it would sell its Appalachian oil exploration and production business for 3.475 billion dollars in cash to a new subsidiary of CONSOL Energy, down 10.09 percent to 48.85 dollars.
Retail titan Wal-Mart leapt 2.82 percent to 55.42 dollars after an upgrade from Citigroup analysts.
The bond market was also mixed. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury bond fell to 3.704 percent from 3.710 percent on Friday and that on the 30-year bond rose to 4.651 percent from 4.633 percent. Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions. - AFP/de
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