Another Dow stab at 13,000 falls short

The Dow Jones industrial average narrowly missed 13,000 Monday. Again.

A burst of selling at the closing bell drove the Dow lower Monday after it hovered around the milestone for most of the afternoon. The average finished the day down a sliver, 0.01 percent, and about 19 points shy of the mark.

It was close enough that 9 cents added to the price of each of the 30 stocks in the Dow would have made the difference. And it almost did: American Express lost 14 cents in the last few minutes of trading. Boeing lost a dime in the last two minutes.

When trading volume is light -- as it was Monday, with 3.6 billion shares exchanged -- someone can come in "with a big sell at the end of the day that can sometimes force it one way or the other," said Joe Bell, senior equity analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research.

The Dow broke through 13,000 several times last week but hasn't closed above that level since May 19, 2008, four months before the worst of the financial crisis.

The Dow lost 1.44 points and closed at 12,981.51. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 1.85 points to 1,367.59, a 3 1/2-year high. The Nasdaq composite index rose 2.41 points to close at 2,966.16, its highest since December 2000. -- AP