Dow falls, Nasdaq flat

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Blue chips slipped, and the broader market struggled Thursday, as investors mulled January retail sales, higher oil prices and revived worries about the impact of the slowdown in the housing market.

The Dow Jones industrial average (down 29.24 to 12,637.63, Charts) lost about 0.2 percent. The broader S&P 500 (down 1.71 to 1,448.31, Charts) index lost lost less than two points after ending the previous session at a fresh six-and-a-half-year high.

The Nasdaq (down 1.83 to 2,488.67, Charts) composite ended little changed, recovering from morning declines.

The major gauges had slipped through most of the session before finding a little momentum in the afternoon amid a rise in oil and gold prices.

Often, a run-up in commodities triggers selling, but in the case of Thursday's session, it sparked an advance in oil sector and metal and mining stocks, which in turn helped the broader market.

Tech stocks had rallied Wednesday, and that sector again showed some momentum Thursday afternoon, with strength in Internet and computer hardware shares helping to keep the Nasdaq close to unchanged.

Friday brings earnings from Alcatel-Lucent, MasterCard and a few other companies, as well as the December wholesale inventories report. Investors will also be attuned to comments from three Federal Reserve officials, including one voting member of the policy committee, St. Louis Fed President William Poole.

Also speaking Friday: Cleveland Fed President Sandra Pianalto and Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser.

Thursday brought an onslaught of January retail sales, which ran the gamut from weak to strong, suggesting a decent but not remarkable post-Christmas period for the nation's chain stores.

Among the standouts, discount retailer Costco Wholesale (down $0.51 to $56.62, Charts) posted a smaller than expected rise of 2 percent in same-stores sales, a retail measure of sales at stores open a year or more. Shares slipped less than 1 percent

Clothing retailer Gap (up $0.50 to $19.75, Charts) posted flat same-store sales versus a decline a year ago. That sent the stock about 2.5 percent higher.

In addition, concerns about the impact from the collapse in the housing market were revived. Toll Brothers warned about its quarterly revenue, and HSBC Bank and New Century Financial warned about problems resulting from defaults on home loans.

The housing and loan concerns put a bit of a scare into investors. However, such concerns had only a limited impact since investors have likely already factored in the impact of the housing market slowdown on the underlying stocks, said Todd Salamone, senior vice president of research at Schaeffer's Investment Research.

Despite a little selling Thursday, the forces that have supported stocks for months remain in place, Salamone said.

In other news, Toll Brothers (down $1.04 to $33.39, Charts) warned that first-quarter homebuilding revenue and orders will fall sharply and that it will take substantial write-downs related to land it optioned for development but now is walking away from because of the housing slump.

A number of homebuilding stocks declined in tandem, including Lennar (down $1.52 to $53.54, Charts) and Centex (down $1.26 to $51.82, Charts).

In addition, New Century Financial (down $10.92 to $19.24, Charts) warned that it didn't account correctly for some of the home loans it had to buy back, sending shares 33 percent lower.

HSBC Bank (down $2.44 to $89.78, Charts) warned that its bad-debt charge for last year would be higher than expected, a result of problems with its U.S. mortgage lending, sending shares lower.

A number of mortgage lenders and other financial stocks declined.

In other news Walt Disney (down $0.19 to $35.29, Charts) reported quarterly sales and earnings late Wednesday that rose from a year ago and topped estimates. Yet, shares declined in the afternoon, giving back morning gains.

EMC (up $0.90 to $14.50, Charts) rallied in active New York Stock Exchange trading after the computer data storage company said it will spin off roughly 10 percent of VMware, its computing virtualization unit.

Market breadth was negative. On the New York Stock Exchange, decliners topped advancers by a slim margin on volume of 1.35 billion shares. On the Nasdaq, losers beat winners by a narrow margin on volume of 1.75 billion shares.

U.S. light crude oil for March delivery rose $2 to settle at $59.71 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Treasury prices rose, lowering the yield on the benchmark 10-year note to around 4.73 percent, down from nearly 4.74 percent late Wednesday. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.

In currency trading, the dollar rose versus the yen and slipped versus the euro.

COMEX gold rose $5.50 to settle at $662.80 an ounce.

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