Stocks End Mostly Higher, Apple Weighs on Tech

U.S. stocks ended mostly higher on Tuesday after stronger-than-expected retail data, while further losses for Apple Inc. weighed on the technology sector.The Dow Jones industrial average rose 27.57 points or 0.20 percent, to 13,534.89, the S&P 500 gained 1.66 points or 0.11 percent, to 1,472.34 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 6.72 points or 0.22 percent, to 3,110.78.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says the government has begun borrowing from the federal employee pension fund to keep operating without surpassing its debt limit.

Facebook Inc CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled on Tuesday a feature to help its users search for people and places within the social network, in the company’s first major product launch since its May initial public offering.

Dell shares have continued to rally Tuesday after Bloomberg and then the Wall Street Journal reported that the company has been in talks with TPG, Silver Lake and other private equity investors about the potential for what would be an enormous leveraged buyout of the PC and enterprise computing company.

The economic stagnation in Europe has taken a significant toll on Germany, with government figures released Tuesday showing that the Continent’s flagship economy contracted in the fourth quarter of last year.