Stocks closed mixed on Tuesday. A downbeat report by Texas Instruments deflated optimism toward technology stocks, but energy stocks advanced. Oil prices rose.
Traders awaited the results, due Wednesday, of a two-day meeting of Federal Reserve interest rate policymakers.
The Fed is expected to maintain its current interest rate target. But the agenda of the meeting included how the Fed can better communicate with the public. The fruits of that discussion might emerge in the postmeeting statement.
Lately, reports have surfaced that Fed economists have been dialing down the amount of economic growth and job growth that is necessary to rekindle inflation.
Job growth has been lackluster, and gross domestic product growth apparently fell in the summer. Nonetheless, Fed officials have talked tough about the need to fight inflation.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 10.97 points, to 12,127.88. General Motors, the top performing stock in the Dow this year, led the gains. Shares rose $1.00, or nearly 3 percent, to $36.19, as traders awaited a strong quarterly report, due Wednesday.
Among the Dow losers, Altria Group dropped 34 cents, to $79.82, reflecting weak results by the company’s publicly traded unit, Kraft. Kraft closed down 94 cents, at $35.36.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index added 0.36, to 1377.38. Biotech leader Amgen contributed to the gain. Shares rose $1.57, or more than 2 percent, to $74.94. Late Tuesday, the company posted better-than-expected quarterly results and boosted its outlook.
Major losers in the S&P 500 included technology stalwarts Texas Instruments, Qualcomm and Microsoft.
Reflecting the tech stumble, the Nasdaq composite index slipped 10.72, to 2344.84. The Russell 2000 small-company index lost 1.09, to 762.43.
New York Stock Exchange volume reached 1.70 billion shares. Winners edged losers by a 9-7 ratio among NYSE-listed stocks. Nasdaq volume totaled 2.02 billion shares, as losers topped winners by nearly a 3-2 ratio.
Treasury securities ended generally higher after strong demand at the Treasury’s auction of $20 billion of 2-year notes. The notes brought a yield of 4.89 percent, up from 4.66 percent at the 2-year note auction in September.
