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Roundup: U.S. stocks end mixed ahead of Fed statement

Xinhua, March 16, 2016 Adjust font size:

U.S. stocks closed mixed Tuesday, as investors digested the newly-released economic data while awaiting Wednesday's U.S. Federal Reserve policy announcement.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 22.40 points, or 0.13 percent, to 17,251.53. The S&P 500 fell 3.71 points, or 0.18 percent, to 2,015.93. The Nasdaq Composite Index lost 21.61 points, or 0.45 percent, to 4,728.67.

The Fed kicked off its highly-anticipated policy meeting on Tuesday and is due to hold a press conference on Wednesday. Most analysts believed the U.S. central bank would not raise its interest rates at this meeting.

The advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for February decreased 0.1 percent from the previous month to 447.3 billion U.S. dollars, generally in line with market expectations, the Commerce Department said Tuesday.

"The big economics story in February was the rebound of retail sales and consumption in January. Today, we learned it was all a mistake. A massive downward revision to January sales suggests weak consumption didn't end at the turn of the year after all," said Chris low, chief economist at FTN Financial.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Producer Price Index for final demand fell 0.2 percent in February, seasonally adjusted, the Labor Department said Tuesday.

Overseas, European equities declined as oil prices extended losses. German benchmark DAX index at Frankfurt Stock Exchange fell 0.56 percent, while French benchmark index CAC 40 lost 0.75 percent.

In Asia, Chinese Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.17 percent to close at 2,864.37 points Tuesday, while Japanese 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average dropped 0.68 percent as expectations for the Bank of Japan to unroll further easing measures were dashed.

The CBOE Volatility Index, often referred to as Wall Street's fear gauge, decreased 0.47 percent to end at 16.84 on Tuesday.

In other markets, oil prices dropped as market expected that global supply exceeded the demand.

The West Texas Intermediate for April delivery moved down 84 cents to settle at 37.18 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The U.S. dollar traded mixed against other major currencies as economic data from the country came out negative.

In late New York trading, the euro rose to 1.1105 dollars from 1.1083 dollars in the previous session, while the dollar bought 113.13 Japanese yen, lower than 113.82 yen of the previous session.

Gold futures on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange fell ahead of the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee press conference scheduled for Wednesday.

The most active gold contract for April delivery fell 14.1 dollars, or 1.13 percent, to settle at 1,231 dollars per ounce. Endit