The markets traded flat during the midday with the Dow adding 5 points to 19,869. Nasdaq rose 14 points to 5,629.
U.S. auto sales fell in January for domestic car makers with General Motors reporting a 3.8% sales drop while Ford sales eased 0.6%. Strong truck sales helped Ford report a smaller than expected drop. On the other end of the spectrum, sales of Nissan vehicles unexpectedly climbed 6.2%.
Nintendo will run a Super Bowl commercial for the very first time to promote its new Switch game console that will launch on March 3. The ad will highlight the game play flexibility of the Switch, which can be used as a traditional game console connected to a TV or as a mobile tablet for gaming on the go. The commercial will also show the new Legend of Zelda game, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wind.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed a lawsuit against Charter Communications alleging that the company defrauded its customers. The Spectrum unit of Charter Communications had advertised and charged customers for faster internet speeds but did not deliver the faster speeds. Spectrum is the rebranded Time Warner Cable which Charter bought in May 2016. Charter said that the false internet speeds were advertised before the company bought Time Warner Cable.
In the broad market, declining issues outpaced advancers by a margin of nearly 7 to 5 on the NYSE while decliners barely edged out advances by a slim margin on Nasdaq. The broader S&P 500 index slipped 2 points to 2,276. Bitcoin climbed $9 to $965.
