Wall Street flat as consumer stocks, weak earnings weigh

The US stocks traded little changed in late morning session on Thursday, struggling to hold on to the record highs on the S&P and the Nasdaq, weighed by a drop in consumer discretionary stocks and disappointing earnings by some big names.

Home Depot fell 4.1 percent, shaving off 45 points off the Dow and weighing the most on the S&P 500.

Sears soared 20 percent after the retailer said it would sell its Kenmore home appliances on Amazon.com and integrate the brand's smart gadgets with the online giant's Alexa digital assistant.

The news, however, dragged down the shares of fellow retailer Best Buy by 4 percent.

Cigarette maker Philip Morris was down 2.8 percent after its quarterly profit missed expectations and was among the top drags on the S&P.

Qualcomm fell 4.7 percent after the chipmaker's forecast missed estimates.

Still, overall earnings continue to beat expectations which, along with a rally in technology shares, helped all three major indexes to close at a record high on Wednesday.

Analysts are estimating an 8.7 percent rise in second-quarter earnings and a 4.6 percent increase in revenue for the S&P 500 companies from a year earlier, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
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