Stocks Make Small Change

Updated from 4:04 p.m. EST

Stocks finished virtually unchanged Tuesday for the second straight day, after a bunch of positive earnings reports and the discovery of a deadly poison at a Senate building late Monday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 6 points, or 0.1%, to 10505.18; the Nasdaq added 3.06 points, or 0.2%, to 2066.21; and the S&P 500 climbed 0.77 points, or 0.1%, to 1136.03.

Volume on the New York Stock Exchange was 1.48 billion shares, while 1.8 billion shares exchanged hands on the Nasdaq. Advancers outpaced decliners by about 5 to 4 on the NYSE, but trailed on the Nasdaq by the same margin.

Contributing some uneasiness, the deadly toxin ricin was found in the mailroom of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist on Monday. The Senate will convene as scheduled today, but the Hart, Dirksen and Russell Senate office buildings will be closed for cleanup and additional testing.

The discovery is clearly having an effect on the bond and currency markets as investors move to safety, said Jay Suskind, equity trading director at Ryan Beck. "But the equity market is not focusing on it too much, except for some small allocation shifts to bonds. There is definitely no hysteria."

The real focus "is the debate on the strength of the economy; whether the glass is half full or half empty," added Suskind. "Investors are looking ahead to Friday's employment report."

Other Markets

Markets overseas finished mixed, with London's FTSE 100 up 0.2% at 4391 and Germany's Xetra DAX losing 0.4% at 4058. In Asia, Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 0.7% at 13,090, while Japan's Nikkei lost 1.3% at 10,642.

The 10-year Treasury note gained 12/32, yielding 4.1%, on flight-to-quality flows.

The discovery of ricin was weighing on the dollar. The greenback was hovering near a three-and-a-half-year low vs. the Japanese yen, recently fetching 105.53 yen. The U.S. currency was weaker vs. the euro, with one euro lately worth about $1.253.