Stocks, Dollar Drift Ahead of Yellen Speech; Oil Drops
Crude oil prices continued to fall on Tuesday as oversupply fears resurfaced, while stocks and the U.S. dollar were little changed ahead of a widely anticipated speech by Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen.
Yellen, due to speak at the Economic Club of New York at 12:20 p.m. EDT (1620 GMT), may offer hints on the central bank's latest thinking weeks after the Fed forecast two further interest-rate hikes this year, down from a forecast of four following its December meeting.
On Wall Street, energy stocks weighed the most on the benchmark S&P 500, but gains in Apple, Microsoft (MSFT), Facebook (FB) and other technology sector bellwethers capped losses there and kept the Nasdaq index afloat.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 29 points, or 0.17 percent, to 17,506.39, the S&P 500 lost 2.1 points, or 0.1 percent, to 2,034.95 and the Nasdaq Composite added 11.29 points, or 0.24 percent, to 4,778.08.
The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 stock index was up 0.3 percent and MSCI's index of shares in major world markets slipped 0.2 percent.
Brent crude oil fell 3 percent to $39.06 a barrel and U.S. crude lost 3.3 percent to $38.09.
Oil prices are up some 50 percent from 12-year lows around $27 touched in January but the rally has eased in recent days as supply looks set to keep rising.
"The amount of verbal intervention, which has obviously helped the market greatly over the past two months, combined with a production slowdown in the U.S., has probably taken (oil) as far as it can; now the market really wants to see some action," said Saxo Bank senior manager Ole Hansen.
A preliminary Reuters survey of analysts showed U.S. oil stockpiles measured by the American Petroleum Institute were expected to reach record highs.
Dollar Eyes Yellen
The U.S. dollar was little changed against a basket of major currencies as traders awaited clues on the rate hike path for the Fed from comments by Yellen.
The euro fell less than 0.1 percent to $1.1189 and the Japanese yen rose less than 0.1 percent to 113.37.
"The market is really sitting on the sidelines," said Jason Leinwand, managing director at derivatives advisory firm Riverside Risk Advisors in New York. "There is really no reason to put any positions on when there's so much uncertainty about what (Yellen) may say."
Benchmark 10-year Treasury notes were last up 5/32 in price for a yield of 1.8544 percent, down from 1.872 percent late on Monday.
Spot gold rose 0.4 percent to $1,225.80 per ounce after hitting a one-month low on Monday.
(By Rodrigo Campos, Additional reporting by Richard Leong and Sam Forgione in New York and Amanda Cooper in London)
