Blue chip stocks managed a modest increase, thanks to DaimlerChrysler AG's announcement that it will sell 80.1 percent of money-losing Chrysler Group to Cerberus Capital Management LP, a private equity group, for $7.4 billion. The deal, which lifted stocks in the automotive sector, undoes a 1998 merger aimed at creating a global auto giant.

The news buoyed the Dow Jones industrial average briefly to a new trading high, but the overall stock market dipped, with many investors wary ahead of Tuesday's release of the Labor Department's Consumer Price Index, a key measure of inflation.

"People are waiting to get a better read on some of the pricing data," said Jack Caffrey, equities strategist at J.P. Morgan Private Bank. "It does seem like there's a bit of a holding pattern."

The market expects the April CPI to have risen 0.5 percent, slower than in March, but it anticipates the core figure — which strips out food and energy prices — will increase 0.2 percent, a slightly larger jump than March's increase of 0.1 percent. Data indicating that consumer costs are rising much faster could frustrate investors hoping for an interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve later in the year.

According to preliminary calculations, the Dow advanced 20.56, or 0.15 percent, to 13,346.78, after rising in the morning to a trading record of 13,383.76.

Broader stock indicators were lower. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 2.70, or 0.18 percent, at 1,503.15, and the Nasdaq composite index lost 15.78, or 0.62 percent, to 2,546.44.

Bonds fell slightly, as many investors stayed on the sidelines ahead of Tuesday's economic data, which will include the National Association of Home Builders's housing market index. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note edged up to 4.69 percent from 4.68 percent late Friday.

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