Stocks end mostly down despite gains

Stocks finished mostly lower Thursday in another choppy day of trading after a mid-session rally faded. Industrial and technology companies rose, but smaller companies and chemical makers skidded.

Without any major economic reports or further development on issues like tariffs, stocks drifted up and down. The market was coming off two days of losses.

Agribusiness company Monsanto fell after a report that U.S. authorities have concerns about its sale to Bayer and might order Bayer to sell more assets.

Industrial companies bounced back after three days of declines that stemmed from worries about trade tensions. After big gains this month, smaller, more U.S.-focused companies continued to slip. Drugstores and packagedfood companies also declined. Technology companies finished with small gains.

Tech stocks did far better than the rest of the stock market in 2017, and they are the only part of the Standard & Poor’s 500 index that has fully recovered from last month's sell-off.

Monsanto fell 4.8% to $117.20 after Bloomberg News, citing unnamed sources, reported that antitrust regulators want Bayer to sell more assets before they let it buy Monsanto. Bayer agreed to buy Monsanto for $66 billion in 2016. Its U.S.-traded shares rose 22 cents to $29.76 on Thursday.

Mattel fell 2.4% to $13.84 and Hasbro slipped 0.4% to $88.15 as Toys R Us prepares to shut down its U.S. operations. Toys R Us filed for bankruptcy protection in late October and said in late January that it would close 182 stores. Mattel has plunged 22% since then, and Hasbro has fallen 7%.

IBM and chipmaker Broadcom helped tech companies rise. Thanks to their big gains in the last 15 months, tech firms now make up one-fourth of the total value of the S&P 500. It has been almost 20 years since any sector dominated the index that way: According to S&P Global, technology made up onethird of the index in early 2000, at the height of the dotcom boom.

Discount retailer Dollar General climbed 4.8% to $93.44 after it said shoppers spent more money per trip during the fourth quarter. The company also gave a strong forecast for the year. Shares of rival Dollar Tree rose 1.5% to $94.16.

Oil and gas pipeline partnerships including Williams Cos. dropped after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission announced changes to tax rules.

Benchmark U.S. crude rose 23 cents to $61.19 a barrel. Brent crude rose 23 cents to $65.12 a barrel. Wholesale gasoline remained at $1.92 a gallon. Heating oil rose 1 cent to $1.89 a gallon. Natural gas fell 5 cents to $2.68 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Gold fell $7.80 to $1,317.80 an ounce. Silver fell 12 cents to $16.42 an ounce. Copper fell 3 cents to $3.13 a pound.

Bond prices edged down. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.83% from 2.82%.

The dollar fell to 106.24 yen from 106.25 yen. The euro fell to $1.2303 from $1.2375.