Early rally in stocks is mostly gone by closing

The Dow ends the day falling almost 100 points, to finish down 8.7 percent for the year.

The Federal Reserve’s latest signals on interest rates gave U.S. stocks a lift for much of Wednesday, but the rally didn’t last.

A sell-off in the final minutes of trading knocked the Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor’s 500 index slightly into the red. The slide extended a three-day losing streak for the two indexes. Only the Nasdaq composite held its course, carving out a slight gain.

Materials and energy stocks were among the biggest decliners as U. S. crude oil prices declined again.

Investors were mostly focused on Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s remarks on the economy and interest rates as she delivered her semiannual report to Congress.

The market has been anxious about the possibility of interest rate hikes at a time when the global economy is showing signs of slowing. But Yellen’s remarks addressed investors’ concerns, said Erik Davidson, chief investment officer for Wells Fargo Private Bank.

“The markets have gotten the message that the Fed is not on autopilot,” Davidson said. “If they’d gotten the sense that the Fed was on autopilot and was predestined to a certain number of rate hikes in 2016, that would have been troublesome.”

The Dow fell 99.64 points, or 0.6 percent, to 15,914.74. The average is now down 8.7 percent this year. The S&P 500 index slipped 0.35 point, or 0.02 percent, to 1,851.86. The index is off 9.4 percent this year.

The Nasdaq added 14.83 points, or 0.4 percent, to 4,283.59. The gain helped trim the Nasdaq’s losses for the year, which stand at 14.5 percent.

Investors appeared to be in a buying mood early in the day in anticipation of Yellen’s testimony. That sent stocks higher early on and sustained them until the last-minute slide as oil prices closed lower.

Benchmark U.S. crude fell 49 cents, or 1.8 percent, to close at $27.45 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, a benchmark for international oils, rose 52 cents, or 1.7 percent, to close at $30.84 a barrel in London.