Wall Street was little changed on Wednesday as gains in technology and financial stocks offset losses in shares of retailers. The S&P 500 consumer discretionary sector was the biggest drag on the broader index, falling 0.3 percent as Target weighed. The big-box retailer fell 4.8 percent after becoming the latest brick-and-mortar chain to report disappointing results for the holiday season, forcing it to cut its quarterly earnings forecast.
Bigger rival and Dow component Wal-Mart was off 1.1 percent.
Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen is scheduled to speak later in the day. Investors will parse her comments to see if she joins other policymakers in suggesting faster interest rate hikes in the wake of Donald Trump's proposals for fiscal stimulus.
At 11:04 am ET (1604 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 7.16 points, or 0.04 percent, at 19,819.61. The S&P 500 was up 1.29 points, or 0.05 percent, at 2,269.18 and the Nasdaq Composite was up 7.38 points, or 0.13 percent, at 5,546.10.
Six of the 11 major S&P 500 sector indexes were higher, with technology and industrials giving the broader index its biggest boost.
Energy stocks were among the top losers as oil prices fell more than 2 percent.
Qualcomm rose 1.7 percent and gave the biggest lift to the technology sector after Morgan Stanley said it believed the US government may be reluctant to pursue an antitrust case against the company.
Bank of America and Morgan Stanley gave the biggest boost to the financial sector. Goldman Sachs slipped 0.3 percent and Citigroup 1.3 percent despite reporting strong quarterly profits.
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