NEW YORK — A year after the stock market hit bottom and began a spectacular comeback, it's getting harder to dazzle investors.

There was upbeat news yesterday, the kind that often sends stock higher: Insurer American International Group Inc. reached a deal to sell one of its major foreign divisions to MetLife Inc. for $15.5 billion. And Royal Dutch Shell and PetroChina offered to buy Australia's Arrow Energy Ltd. for $3 billion in cash and stock.

But investors who rocketed the Dow up 61.2 percent from the 12-year low of 6,547.05 it hit last March 9 weren't impressed enough to extend the previous day's big advance.