In morning trading, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was off 0.1 percent, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.2 percent and the Nasdaq composite was 0.4 percent lower.

With uncertainty over the raising of Washington’s borrowing limit temporarily resolved, investors have focused on other matters, notably when the Federal Reserve will reduce its mammoth monetary stimulus that has been a boon for stock markets.

American hiring and durable goods orders for September were weaker than expected, signaling that growth momentum might be slowing and reinforcing expectations that a scaling back of stimulus, known as tapering, would not begin until next year, Mitul Kotecha of Crédit Agricole in Hong Kong said in a market commentary.

Further data releases on the United States economy this week, including September industrial production, retail sales, inflation and consumer confidence, as well as a Fed policy meeting, could reaffirm that expectation, he said. The Fed is buying $85 billion of government bonds and other securities each month with the aim of keeping interest rates low to support economic recovery….

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Today’s low-interest-rate environment has made the hunt for investment income tougher than ever. Many overseers of public pension funds, desperate to bolster returns and meet ballooning retiree obligations, have turned from traditional investments like stocks and bonds to hedge funds and private equity.

These so-called alternative investments now account for almost one-quarter of the roughly $2.6 trillion in public pension assets under management nationwide, up from 10 percent in 2006, according to Cliffwater, an adviser to institutional investors. Investments in public companies’ shares, by contrast, fell to 49 percent from 61 percent in the period.

Fans of alternative investments argue that they can generate higher returns. But the increased risks, higher fees and lack of transparency associated with such investments make them problematic. A 2007 paper by Fiona Stewart at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris said that “lack of transparency makes the level of risk and type of exposure hard to gauge” in hedge funds.

Last week, an investigation of the Rhode Island pension system’s recent foray into alternative investments raised fresh questions about the high costs and considerable risks of investing in hedge funds and whether their returns are indeed worth it.

The investigation, by Benchmark Financial Services, a forensic firm hired by a Rhode Island council of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, concluded that the $7.7 billion Employees’ Retirement System of Rhode Island was at risk because of its increased concentration in high-cost and opaque alternative investments. The union represents workers whose pensions are invested by the state.

In less than two years, the Rhode Island pension system has ramped up its investments in hedge funds, private equity and venture capital from zero to almost $2 billion, or more than one-quarter of its assets under management. But this mix of investments hasn’t outperformed the fund’s peers, the Benchmark report said. For the year ended June 30, 2013, the fund returned 11.07 percent, versus 12.43 percent earned by the median public pension fund.

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In early trading, the three main indexes — Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, the Dow Jones industrial average and the Nasdaq composite — were 0.1 percent lower.

The government will reach its borrowing limit, or debt ceiling, by Tuesday. If Congress does not raise that limit, the government will not be able to pay all its bills, possibly shaking confidence in the economy, the world’s biggest.

That leaves just days for the White House and Republican lawmakers, who disagree on spending cuts and other important budget issues, to reach a compromise. Republicans are demanding that any increase must result in expenditure cuts of an equal amount. President Obama is demanding a debt-limit increase with no conditions attached….

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Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc., the hotel operator owned by Blackstone Group LP (BX), filed to raise $1.25 billion in a U.S. initial public offering as lodging shares trade at close to their highest level in six years.

The world’s largest hotel chain plans to use proceeds from the offering to pay down debt, according to a regulatory filing today. New York-based Blackstone, the world’s largest manager of alternative assets, will own a majority of the voting power in Hilton following the IPO, the filing shows.

At $1.25 billion, the IPO would be the largest for a lodging company and would move Blackstone closer to realizing gains from its biggest single investment, with more than $6 billion of equity invested from its real estate and other funds. The offering coincides with increases in industry revenue and income that have spurred stock gains for hoteliers such as Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. (HOT) and Marriott International Inc. Both are trading close to their highest levels since 2007.

“For Blackstone, it doesn’t make sense to keep something this valuable on the books,” said Jeffrey Sica, who oversees about $1 billion as chief investment officer of Morristown, New Jersey-based Sica Wealth Management LLC. “Hilton’s business has been doing well, so it makes very good sense for them to do it now.”

The McLean, Virginia-based hotel operator didn’t say how many shares it will offer or at what price. The offering amount is a placeholder used to calculate fees and may change. Deutsche Bank AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Bank of America Corp. and Morgan Stanley will arrange Hilton’s IPO, the filing shows…

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Hilton Worldwide Holdings, the hotel company owned by the Blackstone Group, filed for an initial public offering on Thursday, seeking to raise at least $1.25 billion in what will be one of the most closely watched I.P.O.’s of the year.

Though details of the offering were not yet available, Hilton could be valued at about $30 billion once it goes public, capping a remarkable turnaround for what was once considered one of the worst deals of last decade’s private equity boom.

Blackstone took Hilton private in 2007, paying $26 billion for the company, which is based in McLean, Va. The deal was among those that came to symbolize the outsize ambitions of buyout shops in the years before the financial crisis as firms including Blackstone went after ever-larger targets.

Hilton did not disclose the precise sum it was looking to raise or how it intended to price shares. But Blackstone does not intend to issue so many shares that it loses control of Hilton. Instead, the private equity firm will continue to own a majority of the voting shares, allowing it to control the makeup of the board.

With comparable hotel chains like Starwood and Marriott trading at about 12 times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, and Blackstone growing at a healthy clip, its valuation could be about $30 billion by the time shares start trading, which is likely to be sometime early next year….

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After working for months under cover of secrecy — Mr. O’Brien’s company was code-named “Delta,” while Mr. Ratterman’s was “Blue” — the two sides negotiated many of the finer points of a merger. The talks moved so quickly that their meeting finished an hour ahead of schedule.

The fruits of their efforts were on display Monday, as BATS and Direct Edge announced their plans to combine under the BATS name in an all-stock deal. The goal: to displace the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq atop the world of stock markets. Combining the two will vault the new company past Nasdaq to become the second-largest exchange operator in the United States.

“It pretty much guarantees you’re going to have a significant force to be reckoned with in the global exchange place for decades to come,” Mr. O’Brien said by phone.

The deal, the terms of which were not disclosed, is the latest in the world of market operators, as companies seek more efficiencies and broader global reach by combining. Last year, the IntercontinentalExchange agreed to buy the N.Y.S.E.’s parent, NYSE Euronext, for $8.2 billion. Also last year, the parent of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange paid more than $2 billion to buy the 136-year-old London Metal Exchange.

The pressure to join forces is a result of the challenges and changing environment facing exchanges. Technological advances and regulations have encouraged competition between markets, driving down the profitability of the Big Board and Nasdaq….

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