NEW YORK, Aug 25 (AFP) - US stocks wobbled Wednesday as a larger-than-expected fall in new home sales for July and a mixed picture on orders for durable goods raised questions about the pace of economic growth.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 1.12 points, or 0.01 percent, to 10,097.51 and the Nasdaq composite edged up 2.06 points (0.11 percent) to 1,838.95 at 1515 GMT.
The broad-market Standard and Poor's 500 index dipped a fractional 0.13 point to 1,096.06.
The market was trying to gauge the importance of economic reports on big-ticket durable goods orders and new home sales.
New home sales dived 6.4 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.13 million in July, a report that was worse than expected.
Meanwhile, orders for durable goods rose 1.7 percent in July, beating economists' forecasts of a 1.2 percent gain. But the strong gains in orders for aircraft masked a drop in orders for computers and other electronic products.
"Today's report is not as strong as the headline suggests," said Geoffrey Somes, an analyst at Economy.com.
"Business investment demand appears to still be growing, but not as strongly as it was earlier in the year."
Some analysts said the economic reports failed to give any clear indication of momentum, and that investors would be cautious until more conclusive reports are in.
"It's a market that is going to stay rangebound for most the day," said Peter Cardillo, chief market analyst and strategist at SW Bach.
"Durable goods orders came in mixed. The headline number was good, but excluding transportation, they were up only one-tenth of a percent, which was a little bit on the weak side."
On Tuesday, stocks ended mixed amid a fresh decline in oil prices, with some traders suggesting the recent decline in crude has now largely been priced into the market.
Crude oil futures dipped three cents to 45.18 dollars at 1445 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, retreating further from the all-time high last week near 50 dollars.
Among active shares, The Gap fell 68 cents to 19.25 after Merrill Lynch cut its rating and earnings estimates on the apparel retailer to "neutral" from "buy," citing concerns "recent sluggish sales trends could continue over the last weekend and may continue throughout the fall."
Home furnishings retailer Pier One dipped 19 cents to 17.61 as Deutsche Bank analysts expressed concern Pier the group is losing market share.
Alcoa shed 18 cents to 31.38 after Prudential lowered its third-quarter earnings estimate on the aluminum giant and Dow component over concern about the impact of a strike at its 75 percent-owned Becancour smelter and productivity losses at its Knoxville can body sheet mill.
Motorola added six cents to 16.07 after it signed a deal with and NTT DoCoMo, Japan's largest mobile phone operator, to jointly develop DoCoMo's third-generation mobile handsets.
Elsewhere, Microsoft rose seven cents to 27.31 and Time Warner climbed eight cents to 16.56, shrugging off news that the European Commission launched in-depth probe into a deal by the two US firms to buy a digital rights company, ContentGuard.
The bond market pushed higher, viewing the latest economic news as weak. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury bond dropped to 4.241 percent from 4.283 percent Tuesday and that on the 30-year bond to 5.038 percent against 5.070 percent. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.