Thursday's early afternoon trade: stocks little changed as focus shifts to jobs report

Wall Street was little changed on Thursday, a day ahead of a crucial employment report that would show whether the economy is strong enough to absorb an interest rate hike. A growing number of US Federal Reserve officials have argued for higher rates as the labour market remains solid and inflation inches towards the central bank's 2 percent target.
The view was encouraged by a report that showed the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits fell to a near 43-year low last week. "At the moment, what is driving the US market is a repricing around expectations of near-term Fed action," said Bill Merz, investment strategist at US Bank Wealth Management in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Traders raised the odds of a rate hike to 64 percent for December, up from 60 percent before the jobless claims report was released, according to the CME Group's FedWatch tool. At 12:27 pm ET (1627 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 10.03 points, or 0.05 percent, at 18,271. The S&P 500 was up 1.67 points, or 0.08 percent, at 2,161.4 and the Nasdaq Composite was down 4.47 points, or 0.08 percent, at 5,311.55.
Eight of the 11 major S&P 500 indexes were higher, with technology countering a drag from healthcare stocks. Wal-Mart dropped 2.3 percent to $69.90 and weighed the most on the S&P and the Dow after the world's largest retailer forecast flat earnings for next year. Twitter shares plunged 21 percent after technology news website Recode said Disney and Alphabet were not in the race for the company.