Wall St higher as little impact seen from Paris attacks

By Abhiram Nandakumar

(Reuters) - Wall Street was higher in choppy trading on Monday with investors seeing little long-term economic impact from Friday's deadly attacks in Paris.

Eight of the 10 major S&P sectors were higher, with the consumer staples sector's 0.9 percent rise leading the advancers.

Oil prices rose after French air strikes in Syria but soon reversed course amid concerns of a global supply glut. Exxon's shares rose 0.5 percent, while Chevron was up 0.8 percent.

"Expectations are that (the attacks) will have a modest potential economic impact," said Eric Wiegand, senior portfolio manager at the Private Client Reserve at U.S. Bank in New York. "As a result, markets have the potential to look through this over the very near term."

While investors largely shrugged off the impact from the attacks, sectors linked to travel took a hit.

American Airlines was down 2.3 percent, United Continental 2.2 percent and Delta Airlines 3.1 percent.

Cruise operator Carnival Corp fell 2.9 percent, while travel company Expedia was down 2.5 percent.

At 11:59 a.m. ET (1659 GMT), the Dow Jones industrial average was up 57.19 points, or 0.33 percent, at 17,302.43 and the S&P 500 was up 5.27 points, or 0.26 percent, at 2,028.31.

The Nasdaq Composite index was down 8.95 points, or 0.18 percent, at 4,918.93, dragged by Facebook and Amazon. Both were down more than 2 percent.

"(Monday's trading) reflects the skittishness of the markets here," said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James in St. Petersburg, Florida. "Investors are looking for any piece of information and often over-reacting to any piece of information."

The Paris attacks added to the uncertainty already facing the market. U.S. stocks logged their largest weekly loss since August last week on the back of weak economic data and disappointing earnings from retailers such as Macy's.

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett is not selling any securities from his portfolio as a result of the attacks, CNBC quoted him as saying.

Buffett cut his stakes in Goldman Sachs and Wal-Mart in the quarter to Sept. 30, and raised his holding in IBM, according to a regulatory filing. Goldman was down 0.7 percent. IBM was up 0.7 percent and Wal-Mart 1.1 percent.

Starwood Hotels fell 5 percent to $71.26 after agreeing to be bought by Marriott International for $12.2 billion, or $72.08 per share. Marriott fell 1.1 percent to $73.53.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 1,555 to 1,338. On the Nasdaq, 1,555 issues fell and 1,077 advanced.

The S&P 500 index showed three new 52-week highs and 14 new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 10 new highs and 127 new lows.

(Reporting by Abhiram Nandakumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza and Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)