NEW YORK — A late-day slump left stocks mixed Wed nesday as investors couldn’t hold on to their optimism after the Federal Reserve gave an encouraging assessment of the economy.
The Dow Jones industrial average, up more than 150 points after the Fed described the economy as showing more signs of recovery, closed up 30. The broader indexes were narrowly mixed.
Stocks could get a lift today from Cisco Systems, which reported better quarterly earnings and sales than expected after the closing bell. John Chambers, chief executive of the maker of computer-networking gear, struck an optimistic tone in a conference call with analysts and said orders continue to rebound.
Analysts couldn’t point to any one reason why stocks gave up their gains late Wed nesday, although some said the market is increasingly nervous as the release of the government’s October jobs report Friday approaches. Financial stocks fell especially hard in the last hour of trading after a House vote to speed up the effective date of limits on credit-card companies and added to the overall market’s pullback.
The Dow rose 30.23, or 0.3 percent, to 9,802.14. It had been up as much as 156 after the Fed announcement.
The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 1.09, or 0.1 percent, to 1,046.50. The Nasdaq composite index fell 1.80, or 0.1 percent, to 2,055.52.
Winning stocks were ahead of losers 8 to 7 on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 1.4 billion shares, in line with Tuesday.
Michael Sheldon, chief market strategist at RDM Financial Group in Westport, Conn., said investors grew nervous ahead of the employment report and that traders also worried when the S&P 500 index moved below 1,053 — its average of the past 50 days.
“Once it became apparent that the market wasn’t going to close above its 50-day moving average, investors sold and moved to the sidelines,” he said.
