Yahoo! Lifts Nasdaq, but Dow Declines

Updated from 4:18 p.m. EDT

Stocks in New York went out narrowly mixed Tuesday as investors digested a cautious outlook at Wal-Mart WMT, the return of surging oil futures, and sobering words on the liquidity crisis from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, under pressure from both Wal-Mart and the day's worst-performing component, Hewlett-Packard HPQ, spent most of the day in the red and lost 95 points at its worst level. The index finished down 44.13 points, or 0.34%, to 12,832.18. The S&P 500 fared better, closing off just 0.54 points, or 0.04%, at 1403.04.

The tech-laden Nasdaq Composite, however, eked out a 6.63-point gain, or 0.27%, at 2495.12, following encouraging news at Yahoo! YHOO.

"We're in no-man's land," said Fred Dickson, senior vice president and market strategist with D.A. Davidson. "Little incremental news items have what appear to be fairly significant intraday market impacts, but when you look at it over four or five days, they cancel each other out."

Breadth was positive, though advancing issues only barely outpaced decliners on both the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq. Volume was fairly light, at 1.99 billion shares on the Big Board and 1.87 billion shares on the Nasdaq.

"Overall, investor confidence seems very, very low," Dickson said. "The real good news is that we haven't seen big drops on light volume, and typically that's what we'll see in a really crummy market."

Charles Rotblut, senior market analyst with Zacks Investment Research, said, "It seems like people are on hold to see whether we'll actually see the second-half recovery occur. We're entering a period without a lot of catalysts. Earnings season is over, and the Fed is on hold at least until August. People are focusing on oil and gas to see how expensive it'll be for people to fill their tank this summer."