While you were sleeping: Greek parliament votes

Wall Street moved lower as Greek lawmakers prepared to vote on a proposal that would secure the cash-strapped country its third international bailout.

In Athens, riot police and Greek anti-austerity protesters clashed in front of the nation's parliament. Lawmakers are due to vote soon on reforms needed to secure the new bailout plan.

In late afternoon trading in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.11%, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 0.22%, while the Nasdaq Composite Index shed 0.24%.

"If you take how far we've come in the last three days, throw a riot on TV and toss in the fact that it appears the Greek parliament is still debating this package -- that's enough to hit the market late in the afternoon on a quiet day," Milwaukee-based Robert W Baird & Co institutional equity sales trader and managing director Michael told Bloomberg.

US Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen told the House Financial Services Committee in Washington she expects policymakers to raise rates this year as economic growth improves.

"If the economy evolves as we expect, economic conditions likely would make it appropriate at some point this year to raise the federal funds rate target," Ms Yellen says in testimony to the House of Representatives finance committee.

"The FOMC [Federal Open Market Committee] expects US GDP growth to strengthen over the remainder of this year and the unemployment rate to decline gradually."  The Fed boss will repeat her testimony to the Senate banking committee tomorrow.

Ms Yellen has repeatedly said in recent months, and again today, the pace of increases will be gradual. The pace could be faster if the first increase is delayed too long, she says.

"The US economy requires something other than crisis-era rates," Minneapolis-based US Bank Wealth Management chief equity strategist Terry Sandven, told Reuters. "The pace of the rate hike is more important than the timing of it as investors remain in pause mode with a modest downward basis."

Declines in shares of Chevron and those of DuPont, at 1.6% and 0.8% respectively, outweighed gains in shares of Johnson & Johnson and those of Apple, each up 0.8% recently. Netflix and Intel are set to report results after the market closes.

Shares of Bank of America rose 3.5%, after it posted its best quarterly profit in nearly four years.

In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index ended the session with a 0.4% advance from the previous close. Germany's DAX increased 0.2%, while France's CAC 40 added 0.3%. The UK's FTSE 100 Index closed unchanged from the previous day.

"The resilience of the market in the past month is a positive signal," Luxembourg’s Candriam Investors Group asset allocation strategist Nadege Dufosse, told Bloomberg. "It shows Europe's mechanisms to prevent contagion are credible, and that beyond the political stress over Greece, fundamentals are solid."

(BusinessDesk)