Stocks tepid as earnings fail to impress
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday, when the Dow pushed back above 14,000 briefly to close just below at 13,979.30. (Feb. 5, 2013) Credit: Getty Images
Stocks were flat on Wall Street Wednesday as the latest round of earnings reports failed to give investors an impetus to push the market's recent rally forward.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 7.22 points to 13,986.52, after trading slightly lower for most of the day.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 0.05 percent to 1,512.12. The Nasdaq composite index fell 0.10 percent to 3,168.48
Stocks are consolidating their gains after surging since the start of the year. The Dow closed above 14,000 on Friday for the first time since December 2007 and had its best January in almost two decades. The index is up 6.7 percent this year.
"There's no question that we need to take a pause and let reality catch up," said Jim Russell, an investment director at U.S. Bank.
The Dow is 178 points off its record close and the S&P is 53 points below its all-time high, both reached in October 2007.
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