Wall St. little changed after two-day run; Dow holds 20K

By Chuck Mikolajczak

(Reuters) - U.S. stocks were little changed on Thursday in the wake of a two-day rally that pushed the Dow Jones Industrial Average above the 20,000 mark, as investors grappled with the latest round of earnings.

Qualcomm weighed on both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq as the chipmaker fell 5.7 percent to $53.82 after posting a lower-than-expected rise in quarterly revenue.

The post-election rally reignited this week following a solid start to earnings season and optimism over U.S. President Donald Trump's pro-growth initiatives, giving the benchmark S&P 500 its best two-day performance in seven weeks and catapulting the Dow above the historic level.

Trump's business-friendly decisions since taking office on Friday include signing executive orders to reduce regulatory burden on domestic manufacturers and clearing the way for the construction of two oil pipelines.

Early fourth-quarter earnings have also boosted sentiment and are now expected to show growth of 7 percent, their biggest increase in two years, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Of the 146 companies that have reported earnings through Thursday morning, 69.2 percent have topped expectations, compared with the 63.6 percent average since 1994.

"It is going to be so important to see these earnings come in at or above expectations," said Tim Dreiling, senior Portfolio Manager at the Private Client Reserve at U.S. Bank in Kansas City.

"In 2017, certainly in these first couple of quarters, so much more than Fed-driven liquidity or multiple expansion, we really do look for the growth in earnings to be what fuels any continued increase in U.S. equities."

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 27.16 points, or 0.14 percent, to 20,095.67, the S&P 500 lost 1.7 points, or 0.07 percent, to 2,296.67 and the Nasdaq Composite added 1.04 points, or 0.02 percent, to 5,657.38.

Consumer discretionary <.SPLRCD> stocks, up 0.4 percent, were the best performing of the 11 major S&P sectors. The group was lifted by a 2.5-percent gain in Comcast after the cable operator reported earnings. Charter Communications gained 6.3 percent on merger speculation.

Royal Caribbean Cruises jumped 9.2 percent to $95.72 after it forecast higher-than-expected adjusted earnings for 2017.

Whirlpool tumbled 8.6 to $173.91. The world's largest maker of home appliances posted a quarterly profit below expectations.

Among companies scheduled to report after the closing bell are tech giants Intel , Alphabet and Microsoft , as well as coffee chain Starbucks .

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 1.15-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.60-to-1 ratio favoured decliners.

The S&P 500 posted 64 new 52-week highs and 1 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 129 new highs and 13 new lows.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Nick Zieminski)