Wall Street posts small gains amid mixed news

NEW YORK - Wall Street ended mixed Tuesday as concerns about the path of Hurricane Gustav sent oil prices higher and offset a better-than-expected reading on consumer confidence. Comments from the Federal Reserve about rising inflation added to the market's uneasiness.

The Fed's release of minutes from its Aug. 5 meeting showed that the central bank remains concerned about creeping inflation and that it expected it would need to raise interest rates to try to contain rising prices. However, the Fed also said it was far from clear when a rate hike might come.

There was some optimism at the start of the day on the Street after the Conference Board said its consumer confidence index rose to 56.9 from a revised 51.9 in July; analysts had expected a reading of 53. That marked the second month in a row that sentiment improved, after a six-month slide since January.

However, concerns that Gustav would hit installations in the Gulf of Mexico in the coming days sent energy prices higher. A barrel of light, sweet crude ended the day up $1.16 to settle at $116.27 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

"The overall mood is still one of caution. There's not much out there to get investors excited," said Todd Salamone, director of trading at Schaeffer's Investment Research. "But the bigger picture is that there hasn't really been a major breakdown considering all the bad headlines out there, from higher oil prices to the credit crisis and troubled housing sector."

The Dow Jones industrials rose 26.62, or 0.23 percent, to 11,412.87. The blue-chip index crossed in and out of positive territory throughout the session.

Broader indexes were mixed. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 4.67, or 0.37 percent, to 1,271.51; the Nasdaq composite fell 3.62, or 0.15 percent, to 2,361.97.

Stocks have fluctuated in the past two sessions in part because of light trading, with many people on Wall Street taking the last week of August off.

ASSOCIATED PRESS