Stocks Edge Higher, Ignoring Bad News On Economy, Oil
MOST STOCKS shrugged off bad news on the economy and oil and turned in small gains.</br></br>The broad Standard & Poor's 500-stock Index edged up 0.15%, or 1.67 points, to 1105.91, although the 30-stock Dow Jones Industrial Average inched down 5.46 points, or 0.05%, to 10168.46. The Dow is off 2.7% on the year, but the S&P 500 has fallen only 0.5%.</br></br>Trading volume again was above the lows recorded Friday and Monday, as worries about a disruption of the convention appeared to fade.</br></br>"The convention and the protests are going more smoothly than previously anticipated," said David Hegarty, head of stock trading at Commerzbank Securities, a New York brokerage arm of Germany's Commerzbank.</br></br>Mr. Hegarty said he worked at the firm's backup location in the New York suburb of Rye on Monday and Tuesday, but returned to the city yesterday because "things were going better than expected."