Wall Street traded mixed Thursday as the market positioned for upcoming corporate earnings reports and looked past disappointing data on US retail sales. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 5.97 points (0.06 percent) to 10,686.74 at 1625 GMT, shaking off opening losses a day after closing at a 15-month high.
The Nasdaq composite rose 1.77 points (0.08 percent) to 2,309.67, while the broad-market Standard & Poor's 500 index dipped 0.67 point (0.06 percent) to 1,145.01. The market wobbled at the opening on the news that US retail sales fell unexpectedly by 0.3 percent in December, a poor sign for the critical holiday shopping season.
"The uneven nature of the retail sales results provides a sobering reminder that the economic recovery isn't on truly sound footing given the weakened state of the labour market," said Patrick O'Hare at Briefing.com. Intel rose 1.21 percent to 21.21 dollars ahead of its report, while J.P. Morgan Chase added 0.07 percent to 44.28 dollars.