US stocks were little changed on Wednesday as investors looked to a meeting of euro zone finance ministers for clues on the tone of negotiations to deal with Greece's debt crisis. Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis headed for a showdown at a meeting scheduled to start at 11:30 am (1630 GMT) after his new leftist-led government won a parliamentary confidence vote for its refusal to extend an international bailout.
The benchmark S&P index rose to its highest level of the year on Tuesday on hopes negotiations would result in a deal that could help stabilise the euro zone. The index is down slightly more than 1 percent from its record high on December 29. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 40.43 points, or 0.23 percent, to 17,828.33, the S&P 500 lost 0.2 points, or 0.01 percent, to 2,068.39 and the Nasdaq Composite added 18.63 points, or 0.39 percent, to 4,806.28.
PepsiCo rose 2 percent to $99.96 after the maker of soft drinks and Tropicana beverages reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit and said it would buy back shares worth up to $12 billion by 2018. Apple Inc will buy about $850 million of power from a First Solar plant in California to cut its energy bill and power the company's campus, offices and stores in the state. Apple shares, up 1.5 percent at $123.91, helped push the Nasdaq higher, while First Solar added 1.1 percent to $49.07.
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