Stocks mixed in subdued trading

Major U.S. stock indexes were mixed in thin trading Friday afternoon, as the market closed out what has turned out to be another banner year for Wall

Street.

The S&P 500 was up 0.1% as of

2:03 p.m. Eastern, after spending much of the day flipping between small gains and losses.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.2% and the Nasdaq composite was down 0.3%.

Most of the stocks in the benchmark S&P 500 index rose, with industrial companies, household goods makers and banks among the sectors driving the market higher. Union Pacific rose 1.1%, Clorox added 1.1% and Signature Bank rose 1.7%.

Those sectors’ gains were being kept in check by a slide in technology and communications stocks. Discovery fell 2.8% and Paypal slid 1.4%.

Vaccine makers were among the better performers, with Pfizer and Moderna each up by more than 1%. Additional governments had approved their vaccines for younger adults as well as boosters this week.

2021 has been a strong year for stock investors. The S&P 500, which hit its latest record high on Wednesday, is heading for a gain of roughly 27% for the year, or 29% including dividends. That’s nearly as much as the index gained in 2019.

It’s also been an eventful year. A wave of consumer demand fueled by the reopening of economies pumped up corporate profits more than expected, which helped keep investors in a buying mood. There was also intense interest in so-called “meme stocks,” in which large groups of individual investors bought up shares of beaten-down companies like Gamestop and AMC Entertainment, causing institutional investors like hedge funds to lose billions.