* ISM non-manufacturing index up, but at marginal pace
* Private-employer job losses slow down in December-ADP
* Fed still worried about labor market weakness
* Dow up 0.02 pct, S&P up 0.05 pct, Nasdaq slips 0.3 pct
* For up-to-the-minute market news, click STXNEWS/US
(Updates to close)
By Edward Krudy
NEW YORK, Jan 6 (Reuters) - The Dow and S&P 500 edged
higher, while the Nasdaq slipped on Wednesday after Federal
Reserve officials said they were still worried about labor
market weakness and a report on the services sector showed
only slight improvement in the economy.
Cautious minutes from the Fed's last meeting, as well as
the ISM services report, which showed the sector hovering on
the cusp of expansion, came after a number of data points
helped lift stocks earlier this week to their highest closing
levels in more than a year.
The private-sector ADP jobs report, which showed that
private-sector job losses slowed in December from November's
pace, gave investors further pause for thought before Friday's
key non-farm payrolls number.
"The big party is Friday morning," said Stephen Massocca,
managing director at Wedbush Morgan in San Francisco. Today's
"data points were mixed. I think that they are not that
meaningful, and I think that the most important data point we
will get will be Friday morning."
Even with Wednesday's tiny gain, the S&P 500 eked out a
new 15-month high.
The Dow Jones industrial average <> rose 1.66 points,
or 0.02 percent, to end at 10,573.68. The Standard & Poor's
500 Index <.SPX> inched up just 0.62 of a point, or 0.05
percent, to finish at 1,137.14. But the Nasdaq Composite Index
<> dropped 7.62 points, or 0.33 percent, to 2,301.09.
One bright spot was Family Dollar Stores Inc <FDO.N>, up
12.5 percent at $30.92, after the retailer reported
first-quarter earnings that beat expectations. Rival 99 Cents
Only Stores <NDN.N> climbed 5 percent to $14.02.
[]
The Nasdaq was pushed lower by losses in big-cap
technology issues, including Apple Inc <AAPL.O>, down 1.6
percent at $210.97, and Microsoft Corp <MSFT.O>, down 0.6
percent at $30.77.
Weighing on the Dow was Travelers Cos Inc <TRV.N>, down
1.4 percent at $47.94 after FBR cut its rating on the insurer
to "market perform" from "outperform."
Diversified manufacturer 3M Co <MMM.N> rose 1.5 percent to
$83.72, supporting the blue-chip Dow average after Goldman
Sachs added the stock to its Americas "conviction buy" list
and said stronger-than-expected results in October and
November likely continued in December.[]
In contrast, Walgreen Co <WAG.N> shed 0.8 percent to
$36.72 after the drugstore chain said same-store sales fell in
December instead of rising, as Wall Street had expected.
[]
But Dow Chemical Co <DOW.N> jumped 1.8 percent to $31.02
after Barclays Capital upgraded the stock to "overweight" from
"equal-weight."
On the economic front, the Institute for Supply Management
non-manufacturing index rose to 50.1 in December, showing
slight expansion, but was slightly below the 50.5 forecast by
economists.
Earlier Wednesday, the ADP Employer Services report showed
U.S. private employers shed 84,000 jobs in December, less than
a revised 145,000 in November, but exceeding economists'
forecast for a loss of 73,000 jobs. For details, see
[]
Volume was light on the New York Stock Exchange, with 1.11
billion shares changing hands, below last year's estimated
daily average of 2.18 billion. On the Nasdaq, about 2.27
billion shares traded.
Advancing stocks outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by
a ratio of 3 to 2.
But on the Nasdaq, the opposite trend held sway, with
about five stocks falling for every four that rose.
(Reporting by Edward Krudy; Editing by Jan Paschal)
