Wall Street was lower in midday trade on Tuesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average 0.22 percent lower to 13,619.81.

The Nasdaq Composite had dropped 0.36 percent to 2,660.48, while the S&P 500 was down 0.44 percent to 1,525.12.

An already unsettled market was looking forward to a speech by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, in which he was expected to make comments that could indicate a coming rise in interest rates based on concerns about inflation.

In addition, the dollar hit a new historic low against the euro. Several companies issued outlooks that were less than comforting.

For example, Home Depot (NYSE: HD) said that its earnings will be lower than had been hoped this year, at least partly due to slowdowns in the housing market.

Despite that negative report, Home Depot added 44 cents to $40.67.

Sears (NAS: SHLD) was not so lucky, dropping $15.09 to $156.32 after it said that sales have been weak in appliances as well as for other products.

Elsewhere in the retail sector, discount retailer Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) fell 84 cents to $47.66.

Among house builders, DR Horton (NYSE: DHR) was 52 cents lower to $19.27 after it said that orders were down in its fiscal third quarter from the same period a year ago and that it expects the market to “remain challenging”.

Gainers on the day included Pepsi Bottling Group (NYSE: PBG), which saw share prices rise $1.71 to $36.14 after it raised its full-year outlook.

Carmakers were also higher after JP Morgan (NYSE: JPM; TYO: 8634) issued upgrades to both Ford (NYSE: F) and General Motors (NYSE: GM).

Ford added 16 cents to $9.24, while GM was 91 cents higher to $37.68.

The New York equities markets were up on Thursday on some good performances by individual stocks as well as on the news that unemployment claims were down last week from the week before.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.8 percent to 10,552.78, the Nasdaq composite added 1.2 percent to 2,141.22, and the S&P 500 was up 0.9 percent to 1,227.86.

Two of six new stocks did very well on the day. WebMD, the online health information portal, gained 39.4 percent to $24.40 in its first day of trade. Fuel distributor Global Partners was up 7.7 percent to $23.70.

In addition, the Nasdaq had a couple of big gainers for the day. Medical information services company IDX Systems saw its shares rise by 23 percent to $43.25 on the news that General Electric will purchase the company for $1.2 billion.

In addition, open-source software provider Red Hat gained 29.9 percent to $21.44 when it reported higher than expected revenues and profits.

But while there were big winners on the day, there were also big losers. Cypress Bioscience, also listed on the Nasdaq, fell 56.5 percent to $5.53 when it was learned that a study it did on a fibromyalgia treatment in association with Forest Laboratories did not meet its planned goals.

Forest Labs were down as well, by 9 percent to $38.50. Another big loser on the day was healthcare services provider Amerigroup, which lost 41.6 percent to $19.81 on a warning that there would be losses in the upcoming quarter, which it blamed on rising health care costs.

In less dramatic movements, PepsiCo gained 2.7 percent on the day to $56.56 on a report of higher than expected revenues.