NIKKEI 225 (^N225)

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 10 points at 12,218, boosted by the likes of Alcoa Inc., Boeing Co. and Caterpillar Inc.

The S&P 500 was down 0.3 points at 1,395 and the Nasdaq 100 were off 2 points at 1,393.40 and 4 points lower at 1,741.

Shares of Google Inc. rose 0.6%. The stock was upgraded to buy from neutral by UBS, which cited valuation.

On Tuesday, stocks had their best one-day performance since July, with the Dow industrials jumping 157 points, as investors cheered a recovery in Asian markets and the dollar. Those gains followed last week's sell-off in global stock markets that wiped out trillions of dollars in market capitalization.

"Yesterday was a classic 'technical bounce' from every angle," said Marc Pado, chief U.S. market strategist at Cantor Fitzgerald. "First of all, the market ignored the economic data completely. It simply wasn't as important as Asia and Europe bouncing and the pressure on the carry trade abating for the moment."

The carry trade refers to the practice of borrowing at cheap interest rates in one country to invest in higher-yielding assets elsewhere. Over the past few years, investors had borrowed money in Japan at near-zero rates. But a strengthening Japanese economy has now lifted both rates and the yen, fueling concern that the yen carry trade is being unwound.

"What we have is slowing economic growth and rising inflationary pressures," Pado said. "A month ago, this would have cracked the market. However, stocks are down over 5% on an unwinding of a currency trade. This market level is comfortable with a little weakness in the economic data. "

Automatic Data Processing reported that private-sector employment grew by 57,000 in February, the weakest job growth since July 2003. Adding in some 20,000 government jobs created in a typical month, the ADP report would signal payroll growth of about 80,000 in February. Economists are currently projecting job growth of about 100,000 for Friday's report.

However, the ADP report in recent months has not been a reliable predictor of overall employment levels.

Investors will get more insight into the economy with the 2 p.m. (S'pore 3am) Eastern release of the Fed's Beige Book survey of regional economies.

The consumer credit report for January is due at 3 p.m. (S'pore 4am) The MarketWatch forecast, based on a poll of economists, is that $6.5 billion in new credit was taken out in the month, which would be up from $6 billion in December.

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