Wall Street eked out small gains on Thursday after a series of mixed economic data.
The Commerce Department said on Thursday that although new durable goods orders posted their biggest gain last month since January 2010, business spending was still flat in September.
Separate data released by the Labor Department showed that the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell last week, which could be a sign that the labor market is slowly healing.
Other data released Thursday indicated that the National Association of Realtors U.S. Pending Home Sales Index for September rose only modestly in September.
