Dow Posts Modest Gain, but Nasdaq Slips

"The market is in a downtrend, and I don't think we should ignore it on low volume," Mogavero wrote in an email. "Sentiment is more important in this scenario than volume, and sentiment is not good. In this market when things stay the same instead of getting worse people are happy with that."

Today's action may amount to noise, said Bill Fleckenstein, president of Fleckenstein Capital Management. "It's not really a great idea to make too much out of any one given day." He said that, on thin trading days, quantitative trading strategies further blur the market's short-term moves.

"A lot of people are dying to make the case that a) the market is making a bottom and b) oil is making a top. You can see, every time oil backs off a little bit, they're trying to make the bet," Fleckenstein said.

Elsewhere, crude oil remained one of the stories of the week. Lately, the near-month contract was up 97 cents at $144.54 a barrel after earlier passing the $145 mark for the first time in history. A weak dollar, ongoing fear of an Israeli conflict with Iran and yesterday's report of lower-than-expected U.S. crude inventories have contributed to oil's recent rise.

The average price of gasoline at the pump rose to $4.098 a gallon from $4.092 one day ago. Gold was down $12.90 at $933.60.

Outside the U.S., the European Central Bank, as expected, raised its benchmark lending rate by a quarter-point. Even so, the dollar rose against the euro and its other major competitors. The dollar index, which measures the U.S. currency against a basket of foreign counterparts, was up 1% at 72.74.