US stocks mixed

US stocks finished mixed in post-holiday trading today as Wall Street meandered through a lacklustre day.

The major indexes ended the week higher as investors looked forward to the results of the first weekend of holiday shopping and a key jobs report next week.

Wall Street struggled to continue its bullish streak, albeit in very light trading, but continued weakness in the dollar weighed on stocks. Reports that the Chinese central bank had sold off some of its US Treasury notes due to the low dollar turned out to be unsubstantiated, boosting the dollar against the yen. The dollar reached another new low against the euro, however.

The trading day ended at 1pm (1800 GMT) as part of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 1.92, or 0.02%, to 10,522.23.

Broader stock indicators were narrowly mixed. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index was up 0.89, or 0.08%, at 1,182.65, while the Nasdaq composite index lost 0.57, or 0.03%, to 2,101.97.

The holiday-shortened trading week reflected lingering enthusiasm over Wall Street’s prospects for a continued year-end rally. The dollar’s weakness continued to weigh on the markets, however, keeping the week’s gains minimal. For the week, the Dow rose 0.62%, the S&P 500 gained 1.05% and the Nadsaq was up 1.51%.

Investors are looking to next week, hoping that consumer spending over the holidays would help revive the overall economy. The Labour Department is expected to release job creation figures next Friday that Wall Street hopes will show signs of stronger job growth.

“Traditionally, this is a pretty light trading day, but the people who are in the market really want to be here, and they’re coming in with a positive bias,” said Jack Caffrey, equities strategist at JP Morgan Private Bank. ”Most everyone else will be looking ahead to next week to see how the retailers did this weekend and see how job growth will progress.”

As the holiday shopping season got under way with early morning sales across the country today, retail stocks were mostly higher. Dow component Wal-Mart lost 18 cents to 55.32 to buck the overall trend, while Target added 24 cents to 52.21, Federated Department Stores was up 34 cents at 57.33 and May Department Stores rose 55 cents to 30.19.

Chip stocks failed to get a substantial boost from the Semiconductor Industry Association’s latest sales report, which showed a 22% year-over-year increase in sales in October. Sales rose 1.5% month-to-month. Dow component Intel lost 40 cents to 23.21 on the news, while Advanced Micro Devices slipped 4 cents to 21.53.

Delta Air Lines lost 6 cents to 6.92 after it said it reached new agreements with its lenders and aircraft lessors, wrangling 57 million in concessions from 2005 to 2009 in exchange for 4.4 million shares of Delta stock.

Oracle said it would nominate four people to the board of PeopleSoft Inc, part of its bid to acquire the rival software company that will probably trigger a proxy battle. Oracle slipped 13 cents to 12.66, while PeopleSoft was up 2 cents at 23.54.

Taser International lost 3.51 or 6.95% to 47 after The New York Times reported that an Air Force laboratory that conducted tests on the company’s non-lethal stun weapons disagreed with the company that the tasers were safe, and that more studies were needed to asses their risks.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by nearly 2 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume was extremely light.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies was up 1.66, or 0.26%, at 631.16.