By Caroline Valetkevitch and Noel Randewich
(Reuters) - U.S. stocks remained near flat on Wednesday as Wall Street saw little in the minutes from last month's Federal Reserve meeting to change expectations of when the central bank will raise interest rates.
Many officials at the Fed's April policy meeting believed it would be premature to raise interest rates in June and that a bump in inflation was being offset by a weaker labour market and softer data, according to the minutes.
"The comments were fairly innocuous," said Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott in Philadelphia. "I think everybody's trying to tease something from the notes, but at the end of the day, they didn't really reveal much."
At 2:15 p.m., the Dow Jones industrial average was down 11.27 points, or 0.06 percent, to 18,301.12, the S&P 500 gained 0.68 points, or 0.03 percent, to 2,128.51 and the Nasdaq Composite added 7.76 points, or 0.15 percent, to 5,077.79.
While the central bank is broadly expected to raise rates this year, the timing of the move has kept the market on tenterhooks.
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A Reuters poll on Tuesday showed most economists were now less sure about when rates would be increased, but the median still suggested a move in the third quarter.
Growth slowed to a crawl in the first quarter, while recent data has painted a mixed picture. Consumption, business spending and manufacturing data has suggested the economy is struggling, but housing starts were strong.
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by 1,589 to 1,379, for a 1.15-to-1 ratio on the upside; on the Nasdaq, 1,373 issues fell and 1,348 advanced for a 1.02-to-1 ratio favouring decliners.
The benchmark S&P 500 index was posting 28 new 52-week highs and 4 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite was recording 78 new highs and 47 new lows.
(Additional reporting by Tanya Agrawal, editing by Savio D'Souza; Editing by Nick Zieminski)