Wall Street seesawed on Thursday, dragged down late in the day by technology and financial stocks, while the dollar and the U.S. yield curve flattened in the wake of U.S. Federal Reserve news. The Fed released minutes of its latest policy meeting, with almost all of its officials agreeing that another interest rate increase was "likely to be warranted fairly soon," but also opening debate on when to pause further hikes and how to relay those plans to the public. U.S. stocks had opened lower amid jitters over U.S.-China trade talks. They recovered into positive territory after the Fed minutes but turned negative again late in the day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 27.59 points, or 0.11 percent, to 25,338.84, the S&P 500 lost 5.99 points, or 0.22 percent, to 2,737.8 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 18.51 points, or 0.25 percent, to 7,273.08. Other stock markets were broadly higher. MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe gained 0.29 percent. In Europe, stock gains were driven by the tech, mining and autos sectors, which were worst hit by recent losses. The pan-European STOXX 600 index rose 0.20 percent. The dollar index, tracking it against a basket of six major currencies, fell 0.01 percent, with the euro up 0.22 percent to $1.1391. Sterling was last trading at $1.2784, down 0.31 percent on the day, after Bank of England Governor Mark Carney warned a disorderly Brexit could trigger a worse economic downturn for Britain than the financial crisis. In commodities, oil prices rose after sources said Russia had accepted the need for cuts in production together with OPEC. U.S. crude rose 2.31 percent to $51.45 per barrel and Brent closed at $59.51, up 1.28 percent on the day.
