US stocks end little changed

US stocks closed marginally lower on Monday paring earlier gains spurred by boost in market sentiment from advancing oil and jump in homebuilder confidence. The dollar weakened with investors looking ahead to Federal Reserve’s policy meeting of September 20-21.The live dollar index data show the ICE US Dollar Index, a measure of the dollar’s value against a basket of six major currencies, edged down 0.2% to 95.828. The Dow Jones industrial average closed 0.02% lower at 18120.17 led by Merck and Intel shares. TheS&P 500 slipped 0.04 points to 2139.12 with telecom and health-care stocks weighing on the index. Utilities and financials led gainers with home-builder stocks posting the biggest gains after the National Association of Home 

Builders’ index jumped six points to 65 in September, its highest reading in a decade. The Nasdaq composite fell 0.2% to 5235.03. Market participants will focus today on Federal Reserve’s two-day policy meeting where the central bank is mostly expected to keep rates unchanged: fed fund futures market participants are pricing a 12% probability of a September rate increase, according to CME Group’s FedWatch tool. Today at 14:30 CET August Housing Starts and Building Permits will be released, the outlook is negative.