Wall St little changed; financials rally fizzles : US Business

By Cal Mankowski

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were little changed on Wednesday after a rally in financial stocks ran out of steam while technology shares pared early gains.

Home finance stocks Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae rose sharply, boosted by prospects in Washington for an agreement on a rescue plan for the housing market, including an emergency government lifeline for the two companies.

Oil prices initially fell after government data showed a big increase in U.S. inventories of gasoline, but crude futures retraced most of the decline.

Corporate earnings sent mixed signals, with Boeing Co reporting a bigger-than-expected drop in profit while AT&T posted quarterly results that showed stronger-than-expected wireless growth.

"Overall, the earnings season is going OK," said Peter Jankovskis, director of research at OakBrook Investments in Lisle, Illinois. "It's probably somewhat better than people were expecting but not a real standout."

"The financial system appears to have stabilized, but the main driver for stocks right now is oil prices," he said.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> was up 8.14 points, or 0.07 percent, at 11,610.64. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.SPX> was up 4.67 points, or 0.37 percent, at 1,281.67. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.IXIC> was up 9.83 points, or 0.43 percent, at 2,313.79.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac rose as the House prepared to vote on a measure that will help the housing sector recover from its worst downturn since the Great Depression in the 1930s. The White House said President George W. Bush will sign the bill into law. Shares of Freddie Mac jumped 10 percent to $10.65, while Fannie Mae climbed 15 percent to $15.37.

Shares of AT&T , the largest U.S. telecommunications company and a Dow component, jumped 4.5 percent to $33.24.

On Nasdaq, shares of Apple rose 1.4 percent to $164.32 after AT&T the exclusive U.S. network carrier for the iPhone, said the launch of the iPhone 3G was strong.

Dow component Boeing fell 4 percent to $66.27.

Home builders headed higher, pushing the Dow Jones home construction index <.DJUSHB> up 2 percent. Shares of luxury home builder Toll Brothers rose 1.4 percent to $20.66.

Shares of specialty insurer Philadelphia Consolidated Holding Corp shot up 63 percent to $58.10 on the Nasdaq after Tokio Marine Holdings Inc of Japan agreed to buy the company for about $4.7 billion.

U.S. front-month crude oil fell $0.35 to $128.07 a barrel. At one point the futures were down more than $2.

(Additional reporting by Ellis Mnyandu; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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