Wall Street drifts before long weekend, but consumer stocks up

By Caroline Valetkevitch

(Reuters) - U.S. stocks were little changed in afternoon trading on Friday, taking a breather after recent record highs and a six-day streak of gains, though consumer shares were strong for a second session.

The gains in consumer stocks were offset by declines in healthcare and real estate stocks, though all three major indexes were on track to gain for the week after declining for two straight weeks.

Earlier in the day, a report showed that the U.S. economy grew at a 1.2 percent pace in the first quarter, slightly more than the 0.7 percent estimated earlier. The higher reading was in line with economists' expectations.

 

Investors said trading was slow on Friday, ahead of an extended U.S. holiday weekend for Memorial Day.

"This is pretty common going into a long weekend. (But) this is a pattern we've seen happening over the last several months, where if you have a slow day in terms of news releases, the market is almost eerily quiet. The only thing that tends to move the markets - at least recently - is political news," said Tim Courtney, chief investment officer of Exencial Wealth Advisors, in Oklahoma City.

"For the most part, investors have come to a consensus that there's not going to be recession in the U.S. in 2017, and Europe is strong enough where they're not going to have a recession this year. So the big fear of a recession has been taken off the table."

Helping the consumer staples index, shares of Costco Wholesale rose 1.8 percent to $177.99 and was among the biggest drivers of the S&P and Nasdaq indexes, after the warehouse club operator reported results Thursday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average <.DJI> was down 0.4 points at 21,082.55, the S&P 500 <.SPX> gained 0.39 points, or 0.02 percent, to 2,415.46 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> added 1.98 points, or 0.03 percent, to 6,207.23.

The S&P 500 rose for a sixth straight day on Thursday, its longest streak since February.

The consumer staples index <.SPLRCS> rose 0.2 percent and the consumer discretionary index <.SPLRCD> also was up 0.2 percent.

Ulta Beauty jumped 3.3 percent, the second most on the S&P, after the company raised its full-year forecast.

Deckers Outdoor Corp rose as much as 21 percent to a nine-month high after reporting a surprise quarterly profit.

Among the laggards, GameStop fell 8.2 percent to $21.68 as the videogame retailer left its full-year earnings forecast unchanged despite beating profit estimates.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1.12-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.29-to-1 ratio favored decliners.

The S&P 500 posted 55 new 52-week highs and 8 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 90 new highs and 55 new lows.

(Additional reporting by Tanya Agrawal in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Gayathree Ganesan; Editing by Bernadette Baum)