Stocks stay steady as goods orders soar

General Motors stock rose 19 cents.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Stocks barely moved Friday, even though durable goods orders jumped by the largest amount in six months.
Volume was light on Wall Street, as it often is before Christmas. With little in the way of year-end gains to lock in, traders yawned their way through one of the final sessions of the year.
The major economic news came from the Commerce Department, which reported factory orders for big-ticket items were up 4.4 percent to a record $223 billion last month, following a 3 percent gain in October. The data reflected soaring demand for commercial aircraft; durable goods numbers would have fallen had the aircraft figures been removed. So the biggest one-month advance since last May was treated on Wall Street as a non-event.
In afternoon trading, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 6.17, or 0.06 percent, to 10,883.27.
Broader stock indicators were nearly unchanged. The Standard & amp; Poor's 500 index rose 0.54, or 0.04 percent, to 1,268.66, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 2.93, or 0.13 percent, to 2,249.42.
Bonds are up
Bonds rose, with the yield on the 10-year Treasury note falling to 4.38 percent from 4.43 percent late Thursday. The dollar was higher against other major currencies in European trading. Gold prices also rose.
Crude oil futures rose slightly. A barrel of light crude settled at $58.43, up 15 cents, on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
In company news, General Motors Corp. rose 19 cents to $18.83. GM said it is expanding a recall of sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks with possible antilock brake corrosion to include another 553,000 vehicles in six states and the District of Columbia.
The automaker said in August that it was recalling about 800,000 of the vehicles in 14 northern states. The recall will be expanded to include Delaware, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia.
UPS Inc. rose 30 cents to $77.14 after the federal mediator overseeing negotiations between UPS Inc. and its pilots union called for an indefinite recess in contract talks.
The recess comes a day after the Independent Pilots Association threatened to ask to be released from federal mediation so it can strike, citing three years of contract negotiations with the world's largest shipping carrier that have failed to produce an agreement.
Fashion brand Tommy Hilfiger Corp. agreed to be purchased by Apax Partners, a private investment company, for $1.6 billion, or $16.80 a share, in cash. The offer is a 5 percent premium to Hilfiger's Thursday closing stock price of $16 on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock closed unchanged at $16.
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