NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Stocks were mixed early Wednesday, with investors cheering a drop in oil prices, but continuing to show caution after the six-week market rally.

The Dow Jones industrial average (down 106.48 to 10,440.58, Charts), the Standard & Poor's 500 (up 2.27 to 1,179.34, Charts) index and the Nasdaq composite (up 4.84 to 2,119.50, Charts) all swayed close to breakeven in the first ten minutes of trading.

Adding support to markets in the early going was a slide in crude oil prices to four-month lows.

Oil prices fell ahead of the weekly inventory report from the Energy Information Association, with many traders betting that inventories will show another weekly rise. In addition, OPEC member Saudi Arabia suggested the oil cartel does not need to cut its output, as some have suggested.

U.S. light crude oil for January delivery lost 59 cents to $40.87 a barrel in electronic trading.

In corporate news, IBM (unchanged at $96.10, Research) confirmed that it was selling its PC-business to China's Lenovo Group, as had been unofficially reported Tuesday. Lenovo will pay $1.25 billion in cash, stock and assumption of debt. While the deal was for a lower price tag than had been suggested, it was generally seen as positive by analysts.

IBM stock was little changed.

In other news, Texas Instruments (unchanged at $25.02, Research) issued its mid-quarter forecast after the close Tuesday. The company said it expects fourth-quarter sales and earnings per share to hit the mid range of its previous forecast, due to still middling order trends.

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Treasury prices rose, pushing the 10-year note yield down to 4.18 percent from 4.22 percent late Tuesday. Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions.

In currency markets, the dollar rallied versus the euro and yen, recovering after lurking near another all-time low in the previous session.

COMEX gold tumbled $15.50 to $438.20 an ounce, falling with other dollar-traded commodities.

In global trade, Asian-Pacific markets ended lower Wednesday, and European markets fell at midday.