NEW YORK, July 11 (Xinhua) -- U.S. stocks closed mixed on Tuesday as investors digested a batch of economic data and waited for speeches from Fed officials.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.55 points, or less than 0.01 percent, to 21,409.07. The S&P 500 erased 1.90 points, or 0.08 percent, to 2,425.53. The Nasdaq Composite Index increased 16.91 points, or 0.27 percent, to 6,193.30.
The number of job openings decreased to 5.7 million on the last business day of May, the labor department said Tuesday. Over the month, hires increased to 5.5 million and separations increased to 5.3 million.
Total inventories of merchant wholesalers, except manufacturers sales branches and offices, after adjustment for seasonal variations but not for price changes, were 593.9 billion U.S. dollars at the end of May, up 0.4 percent from the revised April level, according to the commerce department on Tuesday. It was the biggest gain since December 2016.
The National Federation of Independent Business small business optimism index slipped to 103.6 in June from 104.5 in May.
In corporate news, Amazon launched its third annual prime day sales which will last for 30 hours and feature thousands of lightning deals for prime subscribers.
Meanwhile, Wall Street is keeping an eye out for any clues for the next interest hike and the start of the Fed's balance sheet reduction.
Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen will give her semiannual monetary policy testimony before the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday and Thursday.
The Fed has raised rates twice this year and is expected to hike rates once more by the end of this year. The central bank has also signaled its desire to start reducing its massive 4.5 trillion dollars balance sheet. Enditem
