Stocks Ended Little Changed, Oil Dipped

U.S. stocks closed little changed on Thursday after two days of strong gains as crude-oil futures failed to hang on to a move above $50 a barrel and investors brushed off better-than-expected economic reports.The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 23.22 points, or 0.13%, to 17,828.29. The S&P 500 was down 0.44 points, or 0.02%, to 2,090.10. The Nasdaq Composite was up 6.88 points, or 0.14%, to 4,901.77.

Oil prices hit $50 a barrel on Thursday for the first time in seven months, then bounced below that level and settled lower on the day as investors worried robust price gains could encourage more output and add to the global glut.Brent surged as high as $50.51, its highest since early November, then retreated and settled down 15 cents at $49.74 a barrel. WTI fell 8 cents to settle at $49.48, after reaching $50.21, its highest since early October.

Alphabet Inc. (GOOG) on Thursday won a jury verdict in a long-running case against Oracle Corp. ORCL, -0.45% involving Google’s use of Java code in the creation of its mobile operating system, Android.

Investigators probing the heist of $81 million from Bangladesh’s account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in February were surprised to find a cold case from three years ago in which hackers stole a quarter of a million dollars from the country’s largest commercial bank using similar methods.