NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Wall Street was the little market that couldn't Wednesday as investors tried but failed to extend the recent stock rally.

The Dow Jones industrial average (down 1.20 to 11,102.51, Charts) and the broader Standard & Poor's 500 (down 0.48 to 1,268.40, Charts) index ended the session flat.

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The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite (down 3.44 to 2,070.46, Charts) slipped about 0.2 percent.

Oil ended slightly higher, bonds rose and the dollar fell.

On a day with no major economic reports on tap, trading was choppy. But a report on the housing sector may help investors find direction Thursday.

A reading on new home sales in June is due Thursday morning, with economists surveyed by Briefing.com forecasting a modest decline.

Investors will also take in another slew of earnings, including results from Exxon Mobil (Charts), which could turn in another quarter of blockbuster profits.

Stocks fell in the early going Wednesday on disappointing earnings from Amazon.com and Boeing after surging Monday on merger and earnings news, and chalking up a late rally Tuesday.

But selling pressure eased as the day wore on as investors scooped up some of the morning's battered tech shares. A drop in Treasury bond yields helped, too.

Then came the rally attempt, after the Federal Reserve said in its "beige book" read on the economy that it saw signs of a slowdown in some regions but the economy overall grew in the June through mid-July period.

Perhaps more important for investors, the Fed said gains in wages and prices had been only modest, which may boost the chance the Fed will stop raising interest rates.

"What the market really fears is the open likelihood of endless rate hikes," said Brian Gendreau, a strategist at ING investment management. "Today's beige book reduces that risk."

Investors have been worried that the economy is slowing while interest rates have been rising - a potentially lethal combination for corporate profits.

And the market's day-to-day swings have been exacerbated by oil prices and Mideast violence, as well as a slowdown typical of mid- to late summer, usually the worst time of year for stocks.

Troubled automaker General Motors (up $1.34 to $32.00, Charts) reported a net loss but also a much-better than expected improvement in underlying operating profit, sending its stock up 4 percent.

Sun Microsystems reported a narrower-than-expected loss late Tuesday and sales that topped forecasts. Sun (up $0.18 to $4.27, Charts) gained about 4 percent Wednesday and was one of the Nasdaq's most active issues.

But on the down side, Amazon.com (Charts) tumbled over 21 percent after it reported earnings fell from a year earlier, missing forecasts, and issued a disappointing outlook.

Boeing (down $3.85 to $79.90, Charts) slipped 4.6 percent after reporting a quarterly loss and lowered its outlook for the full year.

The Dow Jones Transportation average (down 123.57 to 4,364.72, Charts) slumped 2.8 percent, after railroad operator Norfolk Southern (down $3.85 to $41.40, Charts) reported lower quarterly earnings that missed estimates, citing higher fuel costs.

Corning (down $3.13 to $18.52, Charts) tumbled 14.5 percent in active New York Stock Exchange trading after reporting mixed results late Tuesday and forecast third-quarter earnings that are shy of forecasts.

Chipmaker Xilinx managed to bounce back from disappointing earnings news, with the stock jumping 4 percent in the afternoon after falling at least 6 percent in the morning.

Late Tuesday, Xilinx reported higher quarterly earnings that were short of analysts' estimates.

On the upside, ConocoPhillips (up $1.15 to $68.60, Charts), the No. 3 oil producer, reported higher earnings that topped estimates, thanks to higher oil prices in the quarter. Shares gained 1.7 percent.

In other news, Hewlett-Packard (up $0.42 to $31.75, Charts) said late Tuesday that it would buy Mercury Interactive, a software and business services firm, for about $4.5 billion. Hewlett shares rose 1 percent Wednesday.

Market breadth was mixed. On the New York Stock Exchange, winners beat losers by a margin of nine to seven on volume of 1.8 billion shares. On the Nasdaq, decliners edged out advancers as 2.1 billion shares changed hands.

U.S. light crude oil for September delivery rose 19 cents to settle at $73.94 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after the government's weekly oil inventory report showed a bigger-than-expected drop in gasoline supplies.

Treasury prices rose, lowering the yield on the benchmark 10-year note to about 5.04 percent from 5.06 percent late Tuesday. Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions.

The dollar fell against the yen and euro.

COMEX gold for December delivery rose $3.30 to $634 an ounce.

Caution: slowdown ahead.

More on the markets.