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S&P 500 ENDS HIGHER; INDUSTRIAL SECTOR JUST SHY OF FRESH RECORD

The main U.S. indexes ended mixed on Thursday, with gains in Cisco Systems CSCO.O following an upbeat forecast, while UnitedHealth UNH.N tumbled after a report of a criminal investigation into the insurer.

Earlier in the day, data showed U.S. retail sales growth slowed in April, while a separate report showed producer prices unexpectedly fell last month. That followed a relatively tame consumer price reading earlier in the week.

Regarding the data, Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management in Brookfield, WI, said:

"Deflation isn’t always a good thing. The drop in PPI is a sign that business activity was seizing up in April. Services for export prices fell, probably as foreign retaliation against US businesses began to bite."

Jacobsen added "Retail sales rose marginally as people shifted from spending on autos to spending on eating out. Rather than worry so much about on-again-off-again tariffs, investors are going to think more about on-again-off-again rate cuts by the Fed. When the data are this distorted and messy, a data dependent Fed runs the risk of amplifying the noise."

In any event, on Thursday, the Nasdaq .IXIC ended a six-day win streak, while the Dow .DJI and S&P 500 index .SPX finished higher.

A majority of S&P 500 sectors ended green with defensive groups, including utilities .SPLRCU and staples .SPLRCS, which both rallied around 2%, posting the biggest gains.

Consumer discretionary .SPLRCD, off less than 0.7%, posted the biggest decline.

Meanwhile, the S&P 500 index is now down 3.7% from its February 19 record close.

With this, the industrials .SPLRCI may be the first sector to claw its way back to new highs. The group's now down just 0.93% from its November 29 record close.

On its heels are financials .SPSY, down 1.8% from its February 18 record close, and utilities, off 2% from its November 26 record finish.

Here is a snapshot of where markets stood just shortly after 4:00 p.m. ET:

(Terence Gabriel, Chuck Mikolajczak)

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