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| - Wall Street had a mostly flat day on Wednesday, with markets little moved either by strong earnings or a rising death toll blamed on a virus from China. The benchmark Dow Jones Industrial Average and the broader S&P 500 were both about flat at 29,186.27 and 3,321.81, respectively. The tech-heavy Nasdaq managed to eke out a 0.1 percent gain to finish at 9,383.77, however. Markets pulled back from records on Tuesday as investors grew worried about the new SARS-like coronavirus in China, which has so far killed more than a dozen and infected hundreds. But those fears eased in Wednesday's session. "Today, we found out how much time it would take to contain this and more details and people feel a little bit less nervous about that story," Art Hogan, chief market strategist at National Holdings, told AFP. "This story as a market mover dissipated a bit," he added, saying attention would be more on individual stocks. IBM rose 3.4 percent after topping fourth-quarter earnings expectations. But Dow member Boeing fell another 1.4 percent as newly-installed CEO David Calhoun said the company would stand by its globally-grounded 737 MAX jet. The company expects to resume production even before authorities allow it to fly again later this year, Calhoun said. Among other companies reporting earnings, Johnson & Johnson fell 0.7 percent, Netflix dove 3.6 percent and United Airlines sank 2.9 percent. Meanwhile, electric automaker Tesla topped $100 billion in market value for the first time, triggering a payout plan that could deliver billions to founder Elon Musk. dg/hs
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