Dow closes slightly up on mixed day

Wall Street struggled to reach at least a temporary bottom to its slide today, closing mixed as investors overcame some of their dejection over interest rates.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 2.13, or 0.02%, at 10,012.87, after losing more than 72 points earlier in the session.

A US Labour Department report that consumer prices rose 0.4% last month kept some buyers away from stocks.

The growing worry in the market is that, at its June meeting, the Federal Reserve will raise rates higher than the quarter percentage point most analysts predict.

But some investors used the opportunity to buy blue chips such as financials and other growth stocks – stocks that had been hit hard in the selloff. That kept stocks from falling further.

Broader stock indicators were lower. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index was down 0.78, or 0.1%, at 1,095.66, and the Nasdaq composite index lost 21.78, or 1.1%, to close at 1,904.25.

For the week, the Dow lost 104.47, or 1%, the Nasdaq slipped 13.71, or 0.7%, and the S&P 500 fell 3.03, or 0.3%. It was the third straight week of losses for all three major indexes.

While the Labour Department’s Consumer Price Index rose 0.4%, less than economists had expected, the “core” CPI – excluding food and fuel costs – rose 0.3%, which was higher than forecast.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies was down 3.40, or 0.6%, at 543.77.

Elsewhere, Japan’s Nikkei stock average rose 0.2%, the FTSE 100 closed down 0.3%, France’s CAC-40 slipped 0.3% for the session and Germany’s DAX index lost 0.6%.