Wall St. little changed as energy retreats

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks were little changed on Monday on the heels of a rally in the prior week, as investors weighed fluctuations in the dollar and its impact on other markets, including crude prices.

The Nasdaq was within 3 points of its intraday record and less than 0.5 percent of a closing record set on March 10, 2000.

Equity market gains ebbed and flowed, tracking the behavior of energy stocks as crude oil prices were caught between the weakness in the U.S. dollar and concerns about oversupply. The S&P 500 energy sector <.SPNY> was up 0.1 percent after earlier gaining as much as 0.9 percent.

The action in the dollar has closely affected stocks of late as traders anticipate monetary policy tightening by the Federal Reserve some time later this year. The 20-day correlation between the dollar index <.DXY> and the S&P 500 sits at -0.79. The dollar index was down 0.9 percent on the day.

The recent dollar strength "is probably already at the point where it is going to have a significant impact to earnings," said Stephen Massocca, chief investment officer at Wedbush Equity Management LLC in San Francisco.

While the dollar's rise has been beneficial for consumers, its rapid strengthening has been a problem for a large portion of the market, such as commodities firms and exporters.

"Given what is going on with commodity prices and what is going on with energy prices, if anything the inflation news is getting better, not worse," said Massocca.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> rose 62.07 points, or 0.34 percent, to 18,189.72, the S&P 500 <.SPX> gained 3.81 points, or 0.18 percent, to 2,111.91 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> dropped 0.37 points, or 0.01 percent, to 5,026.05.

Brent slipped 0.3 percent, while U.S. crude added 0.2 percent even after top exporter Saudi Arabia said it would only mull cutting output if producers outside OPEC do so as well. [O/R]

Kansas City Southern shares dropped 7.8 percent to $106.70 as the worst performer on the S&P 500 after the railroad cut its full year revenue forecast.

Gilead Sciences shares fell 1.9 percent to $100.33 after a report said nine patients taking its hepatitis C drugs along with a heart treatment developed abnormally slow heartbeats and one died.

The Nasdaq Biotech index <.NBI> fell for the first time in nine sessions, down 2.3 percent, after running up nearly 20 percent from its February low.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by 1,965 to 1,030, for a 1.91-to-1 ratio; on the Nasdaq, 1,593 issues rose and 1,104 fell for a 1.44-to-1 ratio.

The benchmark S&P 500 index was posting 61 new 52-week highs and 1 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite was recording 137 new highs and 30 new lows.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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