US stocks were little changed yesterday as investors found little reason to push up prices after last week’s rally, while the dollar reached a two-week high against the yen after Japan posted a record trade deficit.
The S&P 500 index last week posted its biggest weekly rise since July, and investors were awaiting the release of results by other major companies.
Trading volume was lighter than usual. Financial markets in European and many Latin American countries remained closed for the Easter holiday.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 9.69 points, or 0.06 per cent, to 16,418.23, the S&P 500 gained 0.75 points, or 0.04 per cent, to 1,865.6, and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 2.411 points, or 0.06 per cent, to 4,093.105.
Halliburton Co. rose 3.3 per cent to $62.91 after the oilfield services company reported earnings that beat expectations and gave a strong profit outlook. The Philadelphia oil service index rose 0.8 per cent.
SunTrust Banks rose 1.9 per cent to $38.68 after its results, while Hasbro Inc. rose one per cent to $55.14 after its earnings beat expectations, though revenue was under forecasts.
The MSCI world equity index, which tracks shares in 45 nations, fell 0.32 point, or 0.08 per cent, to 410.73. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.68 point, or 0.14 per cent, to 481.2.
In the currency market, the dollar inched up 0.2 per cent against the yen, to 102.70 yen, its highest point since April 8, before easing to 102.54 yen in US trading.
Last week’s stock market gains and some encouraging data on domestic jobs and factory activity led some selling in US Treasuries overnight.
Benchmark 10-year US Treasury note yield touched 2.845 per cent earlier before falling to 2.692 per cent in US trading.
US financial markets were closed for Good Friday holiday.
Support for the safe-haven yen ebbed last week after the US, Russia, Ukraine and the EU called for an immediate halt to violence.
However, tensions in Ukraine are expected to underpin the yen in the short term, traders said.
At least three people were killed in a gunfight in the early hours of Sunday near a Ukrainian city controlled by pro-Russian separatists, shaking an already fragile international accord that was designed to avert a wider conflict.
In commodity markets, gold initially edged higher as the Ukraine tensions sparked some safe-haven buying but fell to a two-and-a-half-week low, hurt by sharp outflows from the world’s biggest bullion-backed exchange-traded fund and a stronger dollar.
Spot gold fell $6.96, or 0.54 per cent, to $1,286.69 an ounce after falling to $1,281.40 earlier, lowest since April 3.
Brent crude was last up $0.23, or up 0.21 per cent, at $109.76 a barrel, retreating from a near a six-week peak of $110.36 set last week.
US crude was last up $0.16, or up 0.15 per cent, at $104.46 per barrel.