S&P, Dow, Nasdaq Lose Steam After Weaker Homes Data

Major market averages opened Friday's trading session in the green as buying interest picked up but have since trimmed some of their gains.

Early on and the tech focused Nasdaq Composite dipped 0.04%, the S&P 500 moved higher by 0.18%, and the Dow advanced by 0.29%.

Those long the market could make a stand for a second-straight winning week today, but volume could be lighter with many getting a head start on Thanksgiving travel.

On the data front,October existing home salesdropped more than expected to 4.43M versus the consensus figure of 4.38M.

"This is not directly growth related (the homes are already constructed), but affects things like demand for furniture," UBS' Paul Donovan said. "Falling house prices might create a negative wealth effect - that would matter to leverage."

Among the 11 S&P sectors led by the Utilities and Health Care, while Energy has suffered the most as oil declined by 3.5% in the early part of trading.

Rates are a little higher after Fed chatter on Thursday indicated that members are looking for a higher terminal rate than the market is pricing in.

The 10-year Treasury yield (US10Y) is up 1 basis point to 3.77% and the 2-year yield (US2Y) is up 2 basis points to 4.47%.

"Bear in mind that just after the CPI report when the latest round of speculation about a Fed pivot was at its height, the intraday low for terminal rate pricing fell back to 4.83%," Deutsche Bank's Jim Reid said. "And since then, terminal rate pricing has come back by about halfway to its intraday peak of 5.2% earlier in the month. We settled at 4.99% last night."

Among active stocks, Farfetch is slumping after cutting forecasts.