U.S. stocks were mixed on Tuesday while European shares snapped a three-day rally and oil slipped on fear central banks may not deliver enough stimulus this week to quell concerns about a global slowdown, according to Reuters. Equities and oil had been climbing steadily since European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said he would do whatever it took to save the euro. Markets interpreted that to mean the ECB could announce at its Thursday meeting plans to lower Spanish and Italian borrowing costs by buying those countries' bonds. Signs of flagging growth in the United States had also raised hopes the Federal Reserve, which begins a two-day rate-setting meeting on Tuesday, will step up bond purchases of its own, though most economists expect it to hold fire until September. "The markets have run ahead of themselves. And I think certainly the ECB and the Federal Reserve will hold back from pumping in more money at this point in time," said Manoj Ladwa, head of trading at TJ Markets. Neither central bank is expected to stay on the sidelines for long, though, and that has helped pull the euro off recent two-year lows and take U.S. stocks to their best year-to-date rise since 2003. The euro was last up 0.3 percent at $1.2296, while U.S. government bonds also rose, with the benchmark 10-year U.S. note up 7/32 in price to yield 1.48 percent.
