Wall Street flat; All three indexes set for weekly gains

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 percent for the year and the S&P 500 is 11 percent 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 .DJI was down 6.68 points, or 0.03 percent, at 19,912.2.

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

The Nasdaq Composite .IXIC was up 2.26 points, or 0.04 percent, at 5,449.68.

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

The health index .SPXHC rose 0.55 percent, boosted by Allergan’s (AGN.N) 1.81 percent gain.

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

Cintas (CTAS.O) fell 4.4 percent to $114.80 after the uniforms supplier reduced the lower end of its revenue forecast.

U.S.-listed shares of Credit Suisse (CS.N) fell 0.6 percent to $14.84, while Deutsche Bank (DB.N) rose 1.1 percent to $18.74 after the two European lenders were hit with a combined penalty of more than $12 billion over the sale of U.S. toxic debt.

Synergy Pharmaceuticals (SGYP.O) jumped 9.1 percent 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 U.S. 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.

(Reporting by Tanya Agrawal in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva)