Flat Wall Street propped up by gains for bank stocks

By Shreyashi Sanyal

(Reuters) - U.S. stocks were flat on Friday, as declines in real estate and utilities were offset by gains for banking stocks, driven by a rise in 10-year Treasury yields above 3 percent.

Financial stocks rose 0.52 percent, the most among the 11 major S&P 500 sectors, after the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield broke back above the key technical level for the first time since the start of August.

Helping drive yields was August U.S. retail sales which recorded their smallest gain in six months. An upward revision to July data also kept intact expectations of strong economic growth in the third quarter.

Seven of the S&P's 11 sectors, however, were lower, led by a 1.5-percent slide in the real estate index and a 1.1-percent drop in utilities.

Weighing on utilities was NiSource, which tumbled 10.1 percent after fire investigators said they suspected the company's unit Columbia Gas was linked to a series of gas explosions in Boston suburbs on Thursday.

At 10:08 a.m. ET the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.88 points, or 0.00 percent, at 26,145.11. The Dow is about 1.8 percent below its all-time high, hit on Jan. 26.

The S&P 500 was down 2.01 points, or 0.07 percent, at 2,902.17 and the Nasdaq Composite was up 2.76 points, or 0.03 percent, at 8,016.47.

(Reporting by Shreyashi Sanyal in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta and Arun Koyyur)