Wall Street flat, all three indexes set for weekly gains

The S&P 500 was up 0.04 points, The Nasdaq Composite was up 2.26 points

Wall Street treaded water in light pre-holiday trading on Friday, with the three major indexes on track to post weekly gains.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which came within spitting distance of the historic 20,000 mark earlier this week, looked set to record its seventh straight weekly gains.

"There's really nothing to move the market one way or another," said Mohannad Aama, managing director at Beam Capital Management in New York.

"We are in a holding pattern after the Trump rally and there's nothing really to factor in until 2017. Investors are closing the books for the year."

Following a sharp rally since the Nov. 8 U.S. election, the Dow is up about 14 per cent for the year and the S&P 500 is 11 per cent higher on bets that the economy will benefit from Trump's plans for deregulation and infrastructure spending.

 

U.S. markets are shut for the Christmas holiday on Monday.

At 10:45 a.m. ET (1545 GMT) the Dow Jones industrial average was down 6.68 points, or 0.03 per cent, at 19,912.2.

The S&P 500 was up 0.04 points, or 0.001 per cent, at 2,261.

The Nasdaq Composite was up 2.26 points, or 0.04 per cent, at 5,449.68.

Eight of the 11 major S&P sectors were lower, although losses were modest. The telecommunications index's 0.23 per cent fall lead the decliners.

The health index rose 0.55 per cent, boosted by Allergan's 1.81 per cent gain.

Economic data showed new single-family home sales rose to their highest levels in four months in November, with sales increasing 5.2 per cent to 592,000 last month.

Cintas fell 4.4 per cent to $114.80 after the uniforms supplier reduced the lower end of its revenue forecast.

US-listed shares of Credit Suisse fell 0.6 per cent to $14.84, while Deutsche Bank rose 1.1 per cent to $18.74 after the two European lenders were hit with a combined penalty of more than $12 billion over the sale of US toxic debt.

Synergy Pharmaceuticals jumped 9.1 per cent to $5.18 after the drug developer said data showed its irritable bowel syndrome- tablet met the main goal.

While stocks will trade for the full day, the US bond market will close at 2 p.m. ET.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 1,685 to 1,040. On the Nasdaq, 1,643 issues rose and 943 fell.

The S&P 500 index showed six new 52-week highs and one new low, while the Nasdaq recorded 34 new highs and 21 new lows.