Wall St. flat, but oil price lifts energy stocks; eyes on Fed

U.S. stocks were little changed on Tuesday, though energy stocks were up for a second session as crude prices edged higher.

Traders eyed a two-day Federal Reserve policy meeting which begins Tuesday for clues on the short-term direction of U.S. interest rates. The Fed will release a statement Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. EDT and a news conference will follow.

"The big news comes (Wednesday) from the Fed and we'll work our way a bit lower before the announcement. Key points will likely suggest the Fed stays on hold until the middle of next year and that is already baked in," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital in New York.

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI was up 3.86 points, or 0.02 percent, to 17,035, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 2.31 points, or 0.12 percent, to 1,986.44 and the Nasdaq Composite.IXIC added 3.57 points, or 0.08 percent, to 4,522.47.

The largest percentage gainer on the New York Stock Exchange was Glimcher Realty (GRT.N), which jumped 30.41 percent, after Washington Prime (WPG.N) announced the purchase of Glimcher for $4.3 billion. The largest percentage decliner was Atlantic Power (AT.N), down 33.07 percent after it said it would replace its CEO and slash its dividend.

Among the most active stocks on the NYSE were Glimcher, Bank of America (BAC.N) which rose 0.12 percent to $16.76, and Petrobras (PBR.N), which gained 4.05 percent to $17.21.

Nasdaq's most active included Apple (AAPL.O), down 1.3 percent to $100.29; Yahoo (YHOO.O), down 1.5 percent to $41.93 and Facebook (FB.O), unchanged at $74.60.

Advancing issues were outnumbering declining ones on the NYSE by 1,411 to 1,302, for a 1.08-to-1 ratio on the upside; on the Nasdaq, 1,150 issues were rising and 1,113 falling for a 1.03-to-1 ratio favoring advancers.

The broad S&P 500 index was posting 2 new 52-week highs and 2 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite was recording 6 new highs and 45 new lows.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum)