Stocks were struggling Tuesday after the market made strong gains Monday following comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.
Bernanke signaled that supportive monetary policy will remain even though the job picture has begun to improve, reinforcing the view that further quantitative easing from the Fed may be possible.
The S&P has gained 12.6 percent so far this year, suggesting further upside could be limited. The nearly 6-month rally has come partly after accommodative measures by central banks around the world.
"We've rallied quite a bit for the past couple of months, and yesterday we rallied on Bernanke, so after all that I expect a very flat and quiet market until the end of the quarter," said Jerome Heppelmann, chief investment officer at Old Mutual Focused Fund in Berwyn, Pennsylvania.
Friday is the final trading day of the first quarter, and the S&P is on track for its biggest 3-month gain since 2009.
U.S. single-family home prices were unchanged in January, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index, suggesting the battered housing market continued to crawl along the bottom. Equities barely budged after the data.
Homebuilder Lennar Corp reported a sharp rise in first-quarter orders and said it saw strong signs of improvement in sales activity.
Apollo Group Inc, which owns for-profit University of Phoenix, late Monday said enrollments could decline sharply as it struggles to attract students amid strict admission policies.
Ista Pharmaceuticals Inc climbed a day after Bausch & Lomb agreed to buy the company for about $500 million.
The S&P 500 rebounded from its worst week so far this year to retake a four-year high on Monday after the comments from Bernanke. All 10 S&P 500 sectors rose.
Reuters contributed to this report.
