A weakened consumer confidence reading released Tuesday overshadowed encouraging housing price data and lifted stocks and many exchange-traded funds.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended down 46 points at 9742. The Nasdaq ebbed 7 to 2124, and the S&P 500 finished down 2 at 1060.

The Conference Board reported that its U.S. Consumer Confidence index fell in September because of rising concerns about the economy, job prospects and income. The index dropped to 53.1 in September, down from 54.5 in August.

"Consumers remain quite apprehensive about the short-term outlook and their incomes," Lynn Franco, head of the consumer research group at the private research organization, said in a statement.

The S&P Case-Shiller housing price index showed further improvement when the July figures were released Tuesday morning. Only two of the 20 metro markets measured by the index showed price declines, and 13 of them registered price increases for the third consecutive month.

Health-care stocks perked up slightly in late trading after the Senate Finance Committee rejected the possibility of a so-called public option in the ongoing health-care reform plan.

For a detailed rundown on Tuesday s trading session see our market story.

Winners

Eroding stock prices sent investors to gold and pushed up shares of the Market Vectors Gold Miners fund by 3.2%. The SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF (XHB) climbed 1.6% on generally improving news on housing prices.

Losers

The rise of the yen against the dollar steered investors away from the iShares MSCI Japan Index fund, which shed 2.0%. Predictions by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer that information technology spending will stay down cast a pall on the Semiconductor HOLDRS fund, which lost 1.6%.

Wednesday s Notebook

Earnings and Conference Calls
Actuant, Aehr Test Systems, Diamond Foods, Lawson Software

Economic Data
7:00 a.m. MBA Purchase Applications
8:15 a.m. ADP Employment Report
8:30 a.m. GDP (Q2 Final)
8:30 a.m. Corporate Profits
9:45 a.m. Chicago PMI
10:30 a.m. EIA Petroleum Status Report