US STOCKS-Wall St barely higher as investors pause amid Washington turmoil, ahead of earnings

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* GM, Tesla help push up consumer discretionary sector
* Financials hit post-pandemic high, energy at 7-month peak
* Indexes up: Dow 0.21%, S&P 0.06%, Nasdaq 0.21%

(Updates prices, adds comment, NEW YORK dateline, changes
byline)
By Sinéad Carew
NEW YORK, Jan 12 (Reuters) - The S&P 500 was barely higher
in Tuesday's volatile session as investors waited for earnings
season and monitored developments in Washington after supporters
of outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol.
As Democrats moved to impeach Trump for inciting the deadly
rampage last week, Trump on Tuesday denied wrongdoing saying
that his public comments on the day of the attack were "totally
appropriate." Also, the Washington Post reported that an FBI office in
Virginia issued an internal warning the day before the Capitol
invasion that extremists were planning to come to Washington and
were talking of "war." Trump's denial and the FBI story, which contradicts
suggestions that the administration did not expect an attack,
"highlight the fact that there's still a lot of issues in this
country and we have a lot of progress to make before we can
really go forward," said Michael O'Rourke, chief market
strategist at JonesTrading in Stamford, Connecticut.
"It just gives investors some pause," said O'Rourke.
By 2:24 p.m. ET (1924 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial
Average .DJI rose 65.96 points, or 0.21%, to 31,074.65, the
S&P 500 .SPX gained 2.25 points, or 0.06%, to 3,801.86 and the
Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added 27.94 points, or 0.21%, to
13,064.37.
The communications services sector .SPLRCL was the biggest
percentage decliner of the S&P 500's 11 major industry indexes
as investors were worried that big social media companies such
as Twitter Inc TWTR.O and Facebook Inc FB.O could come under
increased regulatory scrutiny.
"A lot of what we've seen today and we've seen this week is
big tech under pressure because of the obvious sizable influence
and power they have," said O'Rourke as Facebook and Twitter
banned Trump from their platforms after the Capitol attacks.
"It's expected the members of Congress will take it
seriously now," he said.
Five of the 11 major S&P sectors were trading higher with
energy stocks .SPNY leading the gains with a 3% advance, as
crude prices rose. O/R
The consumer discretionary sector .SPLRCD was the next
biggest sector gainer with some of its biggest single stock
boosts coming from carmakers.
Shares in U.S. automaker General Motors Co GM.N rose 6% to
hit their highest in a decade after Chief Executive Officer Mary
Barra outlined plans for its first electric commercial vans to
be delivered to FedEx Corp FD.N by year-end. Also shares of Tesla Inc TSLA.O were up more than 5% as a
regulatory filing showed the electric-car maker moved a step
closer to its launch in India later this year by registering a
company in the country. The S&P financial sector .SPSY traded above its February
peak for the first time, boosted by rate-sensitive banks
.SPXBK where were up 1.7% as benchmark U.S. Treasury yields
reached their highest levels since March. US/
The small-cap Russell 2000 index .RUT gained about 1.4%.
Hopes of a big boost to public spending and speedy roll-out
of vaccines under a Democratic-led U.S. Congress have pushed
Wall Street to record highs, with economically-sensitive small
caps, financial, industrial and energy sectors benefiting.
Investors were also waiting for the fourth-quarter earnings
season to start Friday, with results from JPMorgan JPM.N ,
Citigroup C.N and other big banks.
Earnings for S&P 500 companies are now expected to show a
decline of 9.5% year-over-year in the final quarter of 2020,
marking a slight improvement from the previous expectation for
a 9.8% decline according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
However earnings are expected to rebound in 2021, with a
gain of 16.4% projected for the first quarter. Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a
1.65-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.89-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 posted 85 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 283 new highs and four new lows.