* Euro zone finance ministers in third attempt at Greek deal
* Knight Capital shares jump on bid talks
* Apple, eBay, Amazon lead Nasdaq higher
* Dow off 0.3 pct; S&P down 0.2 pct; Nasdaq up 0.3 pct
NEW YORK, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Wall Street slipped on Monday,
pulling back from last week's gains, as retailers fell on
concerns about heavy discounts at the start of the U.S. holiday
shopping season and the overhang of the "fiscal cliff" kept
investors wary of making big bets.
The Nasdaq outperformed to close higher, led by gains in
eBay and as Apple continued its bounce back.
The Standard & Poor's 500 cut most of its losses during the
session and managed to stay above the psychologically important
1,400 level. It also remained above the 200-day moving average,
maintaining its long-term uptrend.
The S&P 500 consumer discretionary index fell 0.5
percent after the start of the holiday shopping season over the
four-day Thanksgiving weekend. Target, one of the
largest retailers by market value, fell 2.6 percent.
"The concern is big retailers are discounting so much, sales
look better, but at what cost?" said Angel Mata, managing
director of listed equity trading at Stifel Nicolaus Capital
Markets in Baltimore.
Bucking the retail trend, shares of eBay closed at
their highest in almost eight years, rising 4.9 percent to
$51.40, as the online marketplace notched strong sales on "Cyber
Monday." Amazon gained 1.6 percent to $243.62.
The White House threw cold water on a proposal of avoiding
the looming "fiscal cliff" of spending cuts and tax highs by
limiting tax deductions and loopholes, instead of allowing tax
rates to rise for the richest Americans.
Investors are hoping for advances in talks over the $600
billion in spending cuts and tax hikes scheduled to begin next
year, which threaten to drag the U.S. economy back into
recession.
Indications of progress in talks, or just political
willingness to negotiate, contributed to the market's recent
rally. Major indexes last week gained 3 to 4 percent, with the
Dow above 13,000 and the S&P above 1,400 for the first time
since Nov. 6.
Those gains represented a turnaround from recent losses
founded on worries about Washington's ability to solve budgetary
problems.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 42.31 points,
or 0.33 percent, to 12,967.37. The S&P 500 dropped 2.86
points, or 0.20 percent, to 1,406.29. The Nasdaq Composite
gained 9.93 points, or 0.33 percent, to 2,976.78.
About 5.2 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock
Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, below the daily average so
far this year of about 6.49 billion shares.
On the NYSE, roughly 13 issues fell for every 10 that rose,
and on Nasdaq nearly six rose for every five that fell.
In the other major worry for the market, euro zone finance
ministers and the International Monetary Fund made their third
attempt in as many weeks to agree on releasing emergency aid for
Greece, with policymakers saying a write-down of Greek debt is
off the table for now.
"There's no catalyst to continue the rally we saw last week,
though Greece would have been important if we weren't dealing
with the fiscal cliff," Stifel Nicolaus' Mata said.
Shares of Knight Capital Group Inc jumped 13.3
percent to $2.82 following reports that rivals might be
preparing to bid for part or all of the trading firm.
Apple Inc has asked a federal court to add six more
products to its patent infringement lawsuit against Samsung
Electronics, including the Samsung Galaxy Note II,
in the latest move in an ongoing legal war between the two
companies. Apple shares were up 3.2 percent at $589.53.