Stocks Seesaw to Flat Close

Updated from 4:42 p.m. EDT

Stocks in New York closed near the flat line on Monday after an up-and-down session as the Supreme Court put the brakes on the sale of Chrysler to Fiat and Nobel-prize winning economist Paul Krugman predicted the recession's end is near.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 1.36 points, or 0.02%, to 8764.49, while the S&P 500 lost 0.95, or 0.1%, to 939.14. The Nasdaq fell 7.02 points, or 0.4%, to 1842.40.

Stocks spent most of the day in negative territory but reversed about the same time media reports emerged that Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said the U.S. economy will probably emerge from the recession by the end of the summer.

"I would not be surprised if the official end of the U.S. recession ends up being, in retrospect, dated sometime this summer," Krugman said in a lecture at the London School of Economics. "Things seem to be getting worse more slowly. There's some reason to think that we're stabilizing."

The late-day rally smoldered back to the flat line, however, about the time the Supreme Court issued a stay, effectively halting the sale of Chrysler to Fiat for now.

It's been a pretty thin day of trading, and the market has been getting pushed around both directions without a lot of volume either way, said Michael James, managing director at Wedbush Morgan Securities. "But this market is very resilient right now, and just not wanting to really go down."

Pressures on commodities-related stocks and some worries that the Federal Reserve might opt to lift interest rates, also played negatively on equities early on. "But no matter what's thrown at this market, buyers always seem to step up," says Ryan Detrick, senior technical strategist at Schaeffer's Investment Research. "It's impressive."