NEW YORK, Feb. 27 (UPI) -- A rally in U.S. markets petered out Wednesday in spite of a signal from U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke that interest rates could be cut again.
An upswing in the Dow Jones industrial average lost momentum with the session ending with a fractional decline of 0.05 percent.
The index lost 6.59 points Wednesday to close at 12,678.33 points.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index gained 1.42 points to 1,378.87 points, down 0.10 percent, while the tech-dominated Nasdaq composite index rose 8.79 points to 2,353.78, up 0.37 percent.
On the New York Stock Exchange, 1,428 stocks advanced and 1,681 declined Wednesday on a volume of 3.811 billion shares traded.
The 10-year U.S. Treasury note gained 1/32, yielding 3.854 percent.
The dollar fell. The euro traded at $1.5125, compared with $1.4966 Tuesday, while the dollar traded at 106.35 yen from 107.28 yen Tuesday.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei average gained 206.58 points to 14,031.30, up 1.4 percent.
In London, the FTSE 100 index lost 10.90 points, down 0.18 percent to 6,076.50 points.
