U.S. stocks were flat on Monday as record profit at Exxon Mobil Corp. lifted energy stocks, but the gains were offset by weakness in financial and utility shares in advance of a Federal Reserve interest-rate increase expected on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Exxon, the biggest publicly traded oil company, reported a $10.7 billion quarterly profit, capping a year of record earnings. Worries over tight U.S. refining capacity and political risks in Nigeria and Iran have pushed crude oil prices up about 11 percent this year. ID:nN30266440 But the banking and utilities sectors were among the biggest drags on the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index. Utilities like Dynegy Inc. and financial companies like Bank of America Corp. fell before the Fed's meeting as investors worried that higher interest rates would raise costs or squeeze profits. The Dow Jones industrial average was up 13.84 points, or 0.13 percent, at 10,921.05. The S&P 500 index was up 3.43 points, or 0.27 percent, at 1,287.15. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 7.99 points, or 0.35 percent, at 2,312.22. On Tuesday Fed policy makers are expected to raise the benchmark lending rate for a 14th time to 4.5 percent at a meeting on Tuesday. Investors will focus on the Fed's accompanying statement, looking for possible clues about when the central bank will stop raising rates. "When interest rates go up, the utilities don't do so well, and I think there's a developing consensus that they've gone awfully far," said Cummins Catherwood, managing director of Walnut Asset Management. --more 23 04 Local Time 20 04 GMT
