NEW YORK: Wall Street US stocks were little changed on Friday as a rebound in energy companies due to higher oil prices was offset by healthcare stocks and a sharp drop in IBM.
The technology giant’s shares fell 2.2% to a six-month low of US$154.96 after Warren Buffett said he sold nearly a third of his stake in the company.
The stock was the biggest drag on the blue-chip Dow index as well as the benchmark S&P 500 index.
A Labour Department report showed 211,000 jobs were added in April, accelerating sharply from March and pointing to tightening in the labour market.
But the robust data did little to move the needle, also as it came two days after the Federal Reserve downplayed weak first-quarter economic growth and emphasized the strength of the labour market, in a sign it could hike rates in June.
“There weren’t any major surprises in the jobs number that came in slightly better than expected. So all-in-all I believe the data was a non-event for the market,” said Andre Bakhos, managing director at Janlyn Capital in Bernardsville, New Jersey.
About 80% of the S&P 500 companies having handed in their first-quarter reports, with about 75% of them topping profit estimates.
Still, the S&P 500 and the Dow have not moved more than 0.2% in either direction in the past eight sessions.
“This lacklustre behaviour is occurring when the market is a stone’s throw away from all-time highs, so it is either going to break out and make new highs or will go into a short corrective phase. Until then, it is a waiting game,” Bakhos said.
At 11:04am ET (1504 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 15.11 points, or 0.07%, at 20,936.36, the S&P 500 was up 2.63 points, or 0.11%, at 2,392.15 and the Nasdaq Composite was up 0.83 point, or 0.01&, at 6,076.16.
Six of the 11 major S&P 500 sectors were higher, led by a 1.23% jump in the energy index, which gained as oil prices rose more than 2% after slumping on Thursday.
The healthcare index was off 0.4%, leading the decliners. It had gained 0.6% on Thursday when the US House of Representatives passed a healthcare overhaul.
Cognizant gained 3.4% to US$62.84 after the IT services provider’s profit beat estimates.
Fluor fell 6.7% to US$47.23 and was the biggest decliner on the S&P after the engineering and construction company’s profit missed estimates.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 1,755 to 955. On the Nasdaq, 1,416 issues fell and 1,196 advanced.
The S&P 500 index showed 40 new 52-week highs and no new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 81 new highs and 44 new lows. - Reuters
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