US stocks close the day near unchanged

US stocks close the day near unchanged

• A ho-hum day for the US stock markets as markets watched

It was a very quiet day in the US stock market:

• Dow industrial average fell -33.93 points or -0.08% at 44912.19
• S&P index fell -0.64 points or -0.01% at 6449.16.
• The NASDAQ index rose 6.80 points or 0.03% at 21629.77

The small-cap Russell 2000 rose 7.94 points or 0.35% at 2294.46,

The markets seemed more intent to watch the proceedings from the White House meetings with Ukraine's Zelenskyy and the EU leaders.

There was nothing surprising:

• Ukraine and EU leaders would like security guarantees in regard to future Russian aggression

Trump suggests that the EU/NATO would be on the front line as far as the security guarantees, but the US would play a major role. What that role is is unknown. The expectations are there will not be a cease-fire ahead of the next meeting if that can take place.

Although Trump thinks that Putin is ready for a deal, he did hedge himself by saying he did not know if there was going to be a deal or not.