US STOCKS-S&P 500 notches record, shakes off Cisco's gloomy outlook

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* Cisco top drag on all three indexes after disappointing
forecast
* Walmart posts strong third-quarter earnings, raises
outlook
* Dillard's shares jump after quarterly report
* Indexes: Dow down 0.01%, S&P up 0.08%, Nasdaq down 0.04%

(Updates with close of U.S. markets)
By Lewis Krauskopf
Nov 14 (Reuters) - The benchmark S&P 500 stock index posted
a slim gain to end with a record closing high on Thursday, as a
dour forecast from tech stalwart Cisco Systems was offset by a
strong report from big box retailer Walmart.
The Dow index ended barely negative, after posting a closing
high on Wednesday, while the Nasdaq also ended fractionally
lower.
Cisco CSCO.O shares tumbled 7.3% after the network gear
maker forecast second-quarter revenue and profit below
expectations as increasing global economic uncertainties kept
clients away from spending more on its routers and switches.
Cisco's share decline weighed the most on the major indexes
and helped drag the technology sector .SPLRCT down 0.1%.
In contrast, Walmart WMT.N raised its annual outlook, and
the world's largest retailer posted better-than-expected
earnings, comparable sales and e-commerce growth in its largest
market during the third quarter. Walmart shares fell 0.3% after hitting a record high earlier
in the session, but the S&P 500 retail .SPXRT and consumer
discretionary .SPLRCD indexes finished higher after the
company's report.
“We have on display this front end of the economy, the U.S.
consumer, that remains resilient and remains in a healthy place
in front of a very key holiday spending time frame for the
economy," said Margaret Reid, senior portfolio manager at The
Private Bank at Union Bank in San Francisco.
That compares, Reid said, to "the back end of the economy
that still seems to be plagued and weighed by U.S.-China trade
and global economic and political volatility."
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell 1.63 points, or
0.01%, to 27,781.96, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 2.59 points, or
0.08%, to 3,096.63 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped 3.08
points, or 0.04%, to 8,479.02.
Stocks have recently run to all-time highs, helped by the
Federal Reserve's interest rate cuts, third-quarter earnings
topping low expectations, and signs the economy may be
bottoming.
Third-quarter corporate reporting season is drawing to a
close with about three-fourths of S&P 500 companies posting
profits above expectations, but with earnings expected to have
declined 0.4% overall from the year-earlier period, according to
Refinitiv.
"The market is kind of in a holding pattern," said Jake
Dollarhide, chief executive officer of Longbow Asset Management
in Tulsa, Oklahoma. "It seems like it has gotten everything it
can get out of this earnings season.”
Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Thursday said the risk of the
U.S. economy facing a dramatic bust is remote, and investors
will next be looking to U.S. retail sales data on Friday to
gauge the health of the economy. On Thursday, real estate .SPLRCR was the top-performing
S&P 500 sector, rising 0.8%, while energy .SPNY and consumer
staples .SPLRCS lagged along with tech.
Dillard's Inc DDS.N shares jumped 14.2% after the
department store chain's quarterly results. Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a
1.34-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.21-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted 26 new 52-week highs and three new lows;
the Nasdaq Composite recorded 78 new highs and 121 new lows.
About 6.3 billion shares changed hands in U.S. exchanges,
below the 6.9 billion-share daily average over the last 20
sessions.