* Indexes cut gains after auction, Trichet
* Best Buy, Qualcomm rise after outlook
* Initial jobless claims fall sharply
* Dow up 0.1 pct, S&P down 0.2 pct, Nasdaq down 0.1 pct
* For up-to-the-minute market news, click []
(Updates to close)
By Ryan Vlastelica
NEW YORK, March 25 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks ended flat on
Thursday, dropping off earlier highs as a weak U.S. bond auction and
global debt concerns continued to weigh on investor sentiment.
Indexes advanced for most of the session, with the Dow and S&P
hitting fresh 18-month highs, but their gains mostly disappeared
after the auction of seven-year notes and comments from European
Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet on issues surrounding
Greece's sovereign debt.
Trichet told France's Public Senat television that if the IMF or
some other body exercises the responsibility in lieu of the Eurogroup
or instead of governments, "it is evidently very, very bad."
"We are losing our stock gains because of the threat of rising
U.S. yields and the weakening of the euro," said Tom Sowanick, chief
investment officer of the Omnivest Group in Princeton, New Jersey.
The session's early gains came after both Qualcomm and Best Buy
gave bullish profit outlooks, an encouraging sign ahead of the
upcoming earnings season.
The Dow Jones industrial average <> was up 5.06 points, or
0.05 percent, to end at 10,841.21. But the Standard & Poor's 500
Index <.SPX> was down 1.99 points, or 0.17 percent, at 1,165.73. And
the Nasdaq Composite Index <> was down 1.35 points, or 0.06
percent, at 2,397.41.
Bank of America Corp <BAC.N> ended 1 percent higher at $17.74
while peer bank Citigroup <C.N>, the most active stock on the New
York Stock Exchange, ended up 2.9 percent at $4.27. Earlier,
Bloomberg News reported that the U.S. Treasury could unveil a plan
next month for the sale of its stake in the bank. For details, see
[].
Banks are among the best performers this year and were one of the
few sectors to rise on Wednesday when markets fell on fears related
to global sovereign debt.
Wireless chip maker Qualcomm Inc <QCOM.O> gained 5 percent to
$42.19 on Nasdaq after raising its second-quarter earnings outlook
while Best Buy <BBY.N> advanced 3.6 percent to $42.66 on the New York
Stock Exchange after a better-than-expected outlook and results.
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"Since the outlooks are obviously forward looking, they're signs
of encouraging things to come," said Peter Lewis, fund manager at
Murphy Capital Management in Gladstone, New Jersey. "We continue to
expect strong earnings" this season.
First-quarter S&P 500 earnings reports, due in the coming weeks,
are forecast to show year-over-year gains of 36.6 percent, according
to estimates compiled by Thomson Reuters.
Also on Thursday, data showed the number of U.S. workers filing
new applications for unemployment insurance fell sharply last week.
[]
About 10 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange,
the American Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, above last year's estimated
daily average of 9.65 billion.
Decliners outnumbered advancers by a ratio of 3 to 2 on the New
York Stock Exchange, while on the Nasdaq, about eight stocks fell for
every five that rose.
(Reporting by Ryan Vlastelica; Additional reporting by Jennifer
Ablan; Editing by Jan Paschal)
