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U.S. stocks trade mixed midday on Yellen's 2nd day of testimonies

Xinhua, February 26, 2015 Adjust font size:

U.S. stocks traded mixed around midday Wednesday as Wall Street focused on another day of testimonies by Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen.

At noon, the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 6.13 points, or 0.03 percent, to 18,215.32. The S&P 500 was down 0.79 points, or 0.04 percent, to 2,114.69. The Nasdaq Composite Index gained 3. 03 points, or 0.06 percent, to 4,971.15.

Yellen continued her semiannual testimony on monetary policy and the economy before the House Committee on Financial Services Wednesday.

"Even when the time comes to begin to raise our target for short-term interest rates, we will continue to provide a great deal of support for the economy and make sure that we will continue to see a good job market that continues to improve over time," said Yellen.

Despite the Wall Street Journal's valiant effort to paint Tuesday's testimony by Yellen as an incremental step closer to tightening because she spoke mainly about the fact that the Fed will eventually raise rates, she was in fact very careful to stick to the script, said Chris Low Wednesday, an economist at FTN Financial, in a note.

"If economic conditions continue to improve, as the committee anticipates, the committee will at some point begin considering an increase in the target range for the federal funds rate on a meeting-by-meeting basis," Yellen said Tuesday.

Investors also kept their eyes for housing data. Sales of new single-family houses in January, registering at a better-than- expected annual pace of 481,000 units, managed to hold onto December's big surge, according to estimates released by the Commerce Department Wednesday.

Mortgage applications to purchase a home rose 5 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis for the week ending Feb. 20 from the previous week, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported early Wednesday.

On Tuesday, the S&P/Case-Shiller composite index of home prices in 20 cities increased by a greater-than-expected 4.5 percent in December from the same period one year earlier, showing a slight uptick in home prices across the country. Endite