Mixed close on Wall Street with oil decline, Fed decision

NEW YORK (AA) – It was an up and down session on Wall Street on Wednesday as investors were caught between falling oil prices and the Federal Reserve’s decision to keep interest rates unchanged.

Wall Street began the day on a positive note, but slid into red territory shortly after the Energy Information Administration announced weekly crude oil inventories rose for the first time in last 10 weeks. The news helped push oil prices lower by more than 2 percent, as worries resurfaced about oversupply.

Indexes recovered some of their losses to move into green territory after the Federal Reserve said it would keep interest rates unchanged following its two-day meeting.

That triggered a somewhat positive sentiment on Wall Street, pushing stocks higher, but the Dow and the S&P struggled to stay on the plus side.

At the final bell, the Dow Jones was flat, falling 2 points to 18,472. The S&P 500 lost 3 points to end at 2,166. Thanks to better than expected earnings at tech firms, the Nasdaq jumped 30 points to 5,139 -- posting a new record high for the year.

At market closing, the American benchmark West Texas Intermediate was down 2.5 percent to $42.02, while international benchmark Brent crude was at $43.93 -- a 3 percent decline.