US stocks ended mixed yesterday, as investors digested mixed corporate earnings reports. The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased by 0.28 percent, and the S&P 500 ended flat, while the Nasdaq Composite slipped over 0.3 percent.

Meanwhile, the US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, in his opening remarks at a Senate Banking Committee hearing, said that the US central bank was in no rush to cut its short-term interest rate again. He stated that if the economy remained strong and inflation did not continue to move sustainably toward the 2 percent target, the Fed could maintain policy restraint for a longer period.