NEW YORK?Wall Street finished narrowly mixed Wednesday with investors cautious about the economic outlook at the kickoff of the corporate earnings season.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended with a gain of 14.81 points (0.18 percent) to 8,178.41, after wobbling in and out of positive territory.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite eked out a gain of 1.00 points (0.06 percent) to 1,747.17 and the broad-market Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 1.47 points (0.17 percent) to 879.56.
"It was a wishy-washy session on the Street today, as traders digested the latest economic and energy data, and prepared for the start of second-quarter earnings season," said Andrea Kramer at Schaeffer's Investment Research.
Kramer noted that stocks were lower for much of the day but "staged a late-session rebound in the wake of surprisingly strong demand for 10-year Treasury notes, which eased fears about Uncle Sam's ability to finance spending."
Analysts at Charles Schwab & Co. said that in the absence of fresh economic news, the market awaited the kickoff of corporate earnings seasons -- with Alcoa the first of the blue chips to release results -- for clues on an economic recovery.
"Corporate bottom lines are likely to come under scrutiny this season as the Street is looking for signs of growth outside of aggressive cost cutting," the analysts said.
After the bell, Alcoa reported a net loss of $454 million in the second quarter, which was not as bad as feared when special charges are excluded. The aluminum maker ended the regular session with a gain of 0.53 percent at $9.46.
The market close came before the announcement of a big tech sector deal. Computer storage giant EMC, up 0.24 percent at $12.52, won the bidding for rival Data Domain, which ended down 0.15 percent at $22.90.
EMC agreed to pay $33.50 a share or $2.1 billion, topping a bid from NetApp, which gained 1.66 percent to $18.39.
Among other stocks in focus, Google climbed 1.48 percent to $402.49 after the Internet giant said it was preparing a new operating system for personal computers to compete with Windows by Microsoft, up 0.13 percent at $22.56.
Electric utility NRG Energy rose 5.75 percent to $23.35 after rejecting a sweetened takeover bid from rival Exelon, up 0.96 percent at $48.21.
Bonds firmed. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury bond dipped to 3.289 percent from 3.460 percent Tuesday while that on the 30-year bond eased to 4.164 percent against 4.308 percent. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.
"Investor demand for Treasuries was robust, sending prices higher and yields sharply lower," said Sara Kline at Moody's Economy.com. "The afternoon auction of 10-year government debt was well received."
