Wall Street was mixed at noon on Tuesday as the earnings season prepares to get into full swing, with companies such as Apple, IBM, Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan and General Electric all scheduled to release their fourth-quarter reports this week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.04 percent to 12,560.88, while the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.1 percent to 2,500.97. The S&P 500, meanwhile, was 0.02 percent higher to 1,431.01.
Homebuilders were lower. KB Home dropped 1.2 percent to $48.76, while Centex fell 2.8 percent to $51.68. The S&P homebuilders index dropped 2 percent.
Technology stocks were responsible for the decline in the Nasdaq. Cisco was 2.9 percent lower to $28.08 on broker downgrades, while Symantec fell 8.8 percent to $18.67 after it said that profits in 2007 will not rise to expected levels. The semiconductor sector also fell on negative news from brokers. Novellus Systems was down 2.2 percent to $32.03 and KLA-Tencor dropped 2.6 percent to $50.83. Intel, which was scheduled to issue its report after the close of trade Tuesday, was 0.5 percent lower to $22.02.
The banking sector saw gains, with Wells Fargo 2.3 percent higher to $36.33 on earnings of 64 cents per share in the fourth quarter.
In the transport sector, FedEx gained 2.7 percent to $111.77 as the Dow Transports Average gained 1.3 percent on the session so far and 5.7 percent since the beginning of the year.