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Chip stocks extend recent losses

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Boeing ( BA ) eases 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 0.1%, S&P 500 down 0.1%, Nasdaq down 0.4%

(Adds volume, other market details after close of trading)

By Caroline Valetkevitch

NEW YORK, March 11 (Reuters) - The S&P 500 and Nasdaq

ended down slightly on Monday with investors preparing for this

week's consumer and producer price data, which they hope will

provide a better idea of whether the Federal Reserve can begin

cutting interest rates in the coming months.

Boeing ( BA ) shares eased 3%. U.S. Transportation Secretary

Pete Buttigieg said on Monday he expects the planemaker to

cooperate in investigations by the Justice Department and

National Transportation Safety Board into the Alaska Airlines

737 MAX 9 mid-air emergency on Jan. 5.

The industrial sector also was lower, while the

Dow edged higher.

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 46.97 points,

or 0.12%, to 38,769.66, the S&P 500 lost 5.75 points, or

0.11%, to 5,117.94 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped

65.84 points, or 0.41%, to 16,019.27.

Chip stocks extended recent declines, with Nvidia ( NVDA )

ending down 2%, Advanced Micro Devices ( AMD ) falling 4.3% and

Broadcom ( AVGO ) declining 1.2%.

Shares of Equitrans Midstream ( ETRN ) edged up 1.5% after

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

former unit in an all-stock deal. EQT shares slid 7.8%.

Volume on U.S. exchanges was 10.90 billion shares, compared

with the 12.06 billion average for the full session over the

last 20 trading days.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a

1.07-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.45-to-1 ratio favored decliners.

The S&P 500 posted 20 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the

Nasdaq Composite recorded 53 new highs and 74 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)