Stocks give back much of their opening gains, now trading mixed

UPDATED at 11:47 a.m.:

Stocks are trying to hold onto their momentum as mid-day trading draws near, but it's a fight. All three major indices are off their highs of the day and have been trending downward since shortly after opening.

The Dow is up .35 percent.

The S&P 500 is up .11 percent.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq is turned negative, and is down .11 percent.

Stocks open up in mild rally

10:40 a.m.: Stocks opened in a mild rally this morning and will try to make the first three-day winning streak in weeks.

The Dow is up 0.82 percent.

The broader S&P 500 is up 0.73 percent.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq is up 0.77 percent.

Stocks were helped by this morning's better-than-expected new jobless claims report, which showed the first substantial drop in weeks.

Traders are anticipating a strong earnings season, but retailers reported mixed June results this morning.

Costco was up, but based on international sales. Target was up modestly but missed Wall Street expectations. Limited Brands and Macy's, however, reported solid revenue gains.

The big winner this morning was Abercrombie & Fitch, which beat expectations.