New York – Stocks gave up a moderate early advance to close barely changed Monday after oil prices rebounded from their recent decline, rising as much as $1 a barrel.
Investors also moved to the sidelines to wait for Wednesday’s Federal Reserve meeting on interest rate policy.
Wall Street had been flirting with 2006 highs, but the market remains anxious about the possibility the Fed could raise its benchmark short-term rate, now 5.25 percent. Readings of economic growth and inflation remain mixed; the rise in oil carries with it concerns that inflation will accelerate.
The energy and materials sectors were the day’s stock-market winners.
“The most significant thing going on today is just the recovery of energy and energy services,” said Richard E. Cripps, chief market strategist for Stifel Nicolaus, a broker based in St. Louis.
Some of the indexes that track those groups have lost 7 percent this month as oil fell, he said.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 5.77, 0.05 percent, to 11,555.00.
Broader stock indicators were basically unchanged after retreating. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 1.31 to 1,321.18, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 0.16, 0.01 percent, to 2,235.75.
The day’s economic news was cheerless.
The Commerce Department said America’s deficit in the broadest measure of foreign trade increased in the spring to the second-highest level in history, reflecting a big jump in payments for foreign oil. The current account deficit rose to $218.4 billion in the April-June quarter, an increase of 2.4 percent over the deficit the first three months of the year.
The deficit represents the amount the United States must borrow from foreigners to cover the shortfall between exports and imports.
