Wall Street ends dismal month on flat note, semis slide

Stocks ended little changed in choppy trading, closing out an August the bulls would like to forget.

The Dow Jones industrial was up 4.9 points, or 0.05 percent, to end at 10,014.72. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was up just 0.4 of a point, or 0.04 percent, to finish at 1,049.33. But the Nasdaq Composite Index was down 5.9 points, or 0.2 percent, to close at 2,114.03.

European shares edged higher, helped by a rise in US consumer confidence data, though gains were limited by fears for economic recovery, with the market recording its worst monthly decline since May.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index of top shares closed up 0.1 percent at 1,026.34 points, down around 1.7 percent for the month.

Tokyo stocks fell 3.6 percent to a 16-month closing low, with disheartened investors bailing out of the market after the Bank of Japan's emergency moves the day before failed to curb the yen's strength.

The Nikkei booked its biggest daily percentage fall since early June, and it slid 7.5 percent this month, its worst month since May. The Nikkei is one of the worst performers among major indexes in the world this year.