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Chip stocks extend recent losses

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Boeing ( BA ) down as justice dept probes MAX blowout

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Equitrans Midstream ( ETRN ) up as EQT to buy back firm

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Indexes: Dow up 0.03%, S&P 500 down 0.1%, Nasdaq down 0.2%

(Updates to 1430 p.m. ET, adds NEW YORK dateline)

By Caroline Valetkevitch

NEW YORK, March 11 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks mostly edged

lower on Monday with investors preparing for this week's

consumer and producer price data, which they hope could give

them a better idea on whether the Federal Reserve can begin

cutting interest rates in the coming months.

Boeing ( BA ) shares were down 3.2% in afternoon trading.

Alaska Airlines said on Saturday it was cooperating with

the U.S. Department of Justice in a criminal investigation into

a Boeing 737 MAX cabin panel blowout on one of its flights in

January.

Boeing ( BA ) weighed on the S&P 500, with the industrial sector

down 0.8%, while the Dow was flat.

U.S. consumer price data for February is due on Tuesday,

with expectations for a monthly increase of 0.4% and 3.1% on an

annual basis. The U.S. producer price report is due on Thursday.

"These tend to be more volatile ... and certainly the market

will move with them," said Tim Ghriskey, senior portfolio

strategist at Ingalls & Snyder in New York. "There's certainly a

camp out there saying we're going to have renewed inflation - or

there's a good possibility of that - and then there's certainly

a camp that says we're going to have deflation, and that will

allow the Fed to lower rates. It's always tricky."

Data showing signs of a robust economy slowed the stock

market's rally last month as traders pushed back expectations on

the timing of the first Fed rate cut to June from March.

The Fed's next rate-setting meeting is next week.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 12.47 points,

or 0.03%, to 38,735.16, the S&P 500 lost 6.07 points, or

0.12%, to 5,117.62 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped

33.84 points, or 0.21%, to 16,051.28.

Chip stocks extended recent declines. Nvidia ( NVDA ) was

down 1.3%, while Advanced Micro Devices ( AMD ) was down 4% and

Broadcom ( AVGO ) slid 1.4%.

Shares of Equitrans Midstream ( ETRN ) added 1.6% after EQT

Corp ( EQT ) said on Monday it had decided to buy back its

former unit in an all-stock deal. EQT shares slid 9.2%.

Some cryptocurrency and blockchain-related firms, such as

Coinbase Global ( COIN ), climbed as bitcoin hit a fresh

record high.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a

1.16-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.31-to-1 ratio favored decliners.

The S&P 500 posted 19 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the

Nasdaq Composite recorded 50 new highs and 61 new lows.

(

Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch in New York

Additional reporting by Bansari Mayur Kamdar and Shashwat

Chauhan in Bengaluru

Editing by Pooja Desai and Matthew Lewis)