Stocks opened on either side of unchanged Thursday, in directionless trade as investors weighed U.S.-China trade talks, digested a raft of economic data and kept an eye on proceedings around a whistleblower complaint that contributed to a decision by House Democrats this week to open a formal impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 1.19 points, or less than 0.1%, at 26,971.90, while the S&P 500 fell 4.27 points, or 0.1%, to 2,980.60. The Nasdaq Composite was down 24.02 points, or 0.3%, at 8,053.36.

Ahead of the bell, stock-index futures were buoyed by positive remarks out of China and Washington on trade talks, but then gave back modest gains following the release of the whistleblower complaint.

Source : MarketWatch