Wall St little changed near record; banks slip

By Chuck Mikolajczak NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks were little changed on Wednesday, as investors saw little reason to push indexes significantly higher a day after the Dow and S&P 500 closed at record highs for a fifth straight session. Financial companies lost ground after global regulators fined five major banks - including UBS AG, HSBC Holdings Plc and Citigroup Inc - $3.4 billion for failing to stop their traders from trying to manipulate the foreign exchange market. Citigroup, which will pay $1.02 billion to settle the probe, dipped 0.8 percent to $53.39. JPMorgan Chase, which is also facing a penalty, fell 1.4 percent to $60.49 as the biggest drag on the S&P 500, while the S&P financial index lost 0.3 percent. Tuesday's S&P 500 record marked its 40th new closing high of the year, versus 45 in 2013. The last five-day streak of record highs was in May 2013, and the next longest was eight days in June 1997. The Dow is on a 6-session winning run, its longest since June. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 7.46 points, or 0.04 percent, to 17,607.44, the S&P 500 lost 0.91 points, or 0.04 percent, to 2,038.77 and the Nasdaq Composite added 4.41 points, or 0.09 percent, to 4,664.97. "This is a pause. There hasn’t been any horrible news pressing down the market," said Kim Forrest, senior equity research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh. The S&P 500 has rallied more than 9 percent from a six-month low in October, buoyed by supportive economic data and corporate earnings. For the year so far, it is up more than 10 percent. Thomson Reuters data through Wednesday morning showed that of 453 companies in the S&P 500 reporting, 74.8 percent beat expectations, well above the long-term and one-year averages. Earnings overall were expected to grow 10 percent over the year-ago period. Macy's Inc rose 4.6 percent to $61.26 after it posted third-quarter earnings and revised its full-year outlook. Cisco Systems is scheduled to report earnings after the close. U.S. wholesale inventories rose more that expected in September but the government revised downward initial estimates for August, which suggests little impact on current views of third-quarter economic growth. SeaWorld Entertainment slumped 11.1 percent to $16.53, the biggest percentage decliner on the New York Stock Exchange, after quarterly earnings fell short of expectations. Susquehanna Bancshares Inc surged 33 percent to $13.17 after the company agreed to be acquired by BB&T Corp for about $2.5 billion. BB&T shares lost 1.9 percent to $37.60. (Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by W Simon, JS Benkoe and Nick Zieminski)