(Adds preliminary closing details, analyst comment)

By Sinéad Carew and Shubham Batra

Sept 10 (Reuters) - Wall Street's benchmark S&P 500

index closed slightly higher on Tuesday with concerns about

slowing economic growth stunting gains and the Dow dipped as

bank stocks sank after warnings of current-quarter weakness

while energy shares tumbled.

Energy was the weakest among the benchmark's 11

industry indexes, as crude oil futures fell after OPEC+ cut its

demand forecast for 2024 and 2025.

Bank stocks fell broadly after Goldman Sachs ( GS ) CEO

David Solomon said late on Monday that trading revenue could

fall 10% this quarter. On Tuesday, JPMorgan Chase ( JPM )

tempered expectations about income from interest payments.

Also, the finance chief of smaller consumer lender Ally

Financial ( ALLY ) said credit challenges have intensified this

quarter, sending its shares down sharply.

The warnings from banks overshadowed an announcement by the

Federal Reserve's regulatory chief of a plan to significantly

ease an earlier proposal to raise big banks' capital.

"A lot of the action today is being driven by concern the

banks are lowering expectations for earnings for the current

quarter," said Lindsey Bell, chief strategist at 248 Ventures in

Charlotte, North Carolina. "The news from JPMorgan ( JPM ), Goldman

Sachs ( GS ) and Ally stole the show because they're saying that

fundamentally their business is slowing down."

Investors are also worried about energy demand on top of

uncertainty about the Fed's decision on interest rates next week

and its comment on the economy. In addition, the U.S.

presidential election looms on Nov. 5.

"We're getting these signs that economic growth across the

globe is slowing and it adds angst when we already have such

uncertainty here with the election cycle," Bell said, suggesting

that September and October could be weak months for stocks.

Election uncertainty was in focus ahead of Tuesday's

televised debate between Democratic presidential candidate

Kamala Harris and Republican candidate Donald Trump as the two

meet for the first time at 9 p.m. EDT (0100 GMT).

"Today, we're looking at three things: growth scares, low

volume and a presidential debate tonight," said John Augustine,

chief investment officer at Huntington National Bank.

But Augustine questioned investors' apparent extrapolation

of JPMorgan's ( JPM ) news "to the entire economy."

According to preliminary data, the S&P 500

gained 24.30 points, or 0.45%, to end at 5,495.35 points,

while the Nasdaq Composite gained 144.64 points, or

0.86%, to 17,029.24. The Dow Jones Industrial Average

fell 91.08 points, or 0.22%, to 40,735.64.

In the previous session, Wall Street's main indexes recorded

gains of more than 1% as investors started the week seeking

bargains after last week's steep losses.

Investors will closely monitor the August consumer price

index inflation report on Wednesday and the producer prices

report on Thursday.

In individual stocks, Hewlett Packard Enterprise ( HPE )

dropped after the server maker announced a $1.35 billion

mandatory convertible preferred stock offering to fund its

acquisition of Juniper Networks ( JNPR ).

Oracle shares rallied after the software company

beat estimates for quarterly results.