Stocks finished mixed Wednesday in a volatile session in which investors considered record-high oil prices and a falling U.S. dollar ahead of next week's Federal Reserve (Fed) policy meting. Stocks rose Tuesday on the belief that the Fed will cut a key short-term interest rate by as much as a half-percentage point when it meets next week. Such bets continued to soothe Wall Street investors Wednesday, but any confidence in the Fed was countered by surging oil prices, which hit a record trading high above $80, and the falling dollar, which dropped to a record low versus the euro and was little changed versus the yen. Light sweet crude oil for October delivery rose $1.68 to settle at $79.91 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, briefly hitting a record trading high of $80.05 after the U.S. government's weekly petroleum inventory report showed a surprising drop in crude-oil and gasoline supplies. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 16.74, or 0.1 percent, to 13,201.65. The broader Standard & Poor's composite index was virtually unchanged, rising 0.07 to 1,471.56. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index fell 5.40, or 0.2 percent, to 2,592.07. Amgen rose almost 4 percent in active trading after U.S. regulators voted against requiring the company to add information about red blood cell levels to the labels of its anti-anemia drugs. Shares of Apple also rose. The New York Stock Exchange composite index rose 1.06 to 9,598.67. The American Stock Exchange composite index jumped 28.79 to 2,297.78. And the Russell 2000 index fell 4.37 to 777.90.
