NEW YORK, Aug. 25 (Xinhua) -- U.S. stocks traded mixed on Friday as investors were digesting the latest remarks by Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen.
At midday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 55.76 points, or 0.26 percent, to 21,839.16. The S&P 500 gained 7.48 points, or 0.31 percent, to 2,446.45. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 1.73 points, or 0.03 percent, to 6,269.60.
At the annual Economic Policy Symposium in Jackson Hole on Friday, Yellen said that the financial system is safer now than it was then though some adjustments of regulations may be needed.
Though Yellen's speech has been closely watched by investors, she offered no clues about the future of monetary policy, instead focusing on the history of the financial crisis and what regulators have done in response.
Expectations for tighter monetary policy in the U.S. have been dampened recently by soft inflation data. Market expectations for a rate hike in December are just 42.2 percent, according to the CME Group's FedWatch tool.
Meanwhile, traders kept an eye on the prospects of the U.S. tax reform. U.S. President Donald Trump will start publicly campaigning for long-waited tax reform next week, according to his chief economic advisor, Gary Cohn.
"Starting next week, the president's agenda and calendar is going to revolve around tax reform," Cohn said in an interview with Financial Times published Friday. "He will start being on the road making major addresses justifying the reasoning for tax reform and why we need it in the U.S."
On the economic front, new orders for manufactured durable goods in July decreased 6.8 percent to 229.2 billion U.S. dollars, the U.S. Commerce Department announced Friday, missing market consensus. This decline, down three of the last four months, followed a 6.4 percent June increase. Enditem
