NEW YORK, Aug 14, 2026 (BSS/AFP) - Wall Street stocks were little changed early Friday as markets digested a weak US retail sales report in a late-summer vacation period of light trading volumes

Total retail sales were down 0.6 percent in July from the previous month, at $763.6 billion, missing analyst expectations by a wide margin.

Analysts noted caveats such as a drop in gasoline prices from June and the shifting of Amazon's "Prime" day of discounts to June, leading some consumers to front load purchases.

About 15 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.1 percent at 53,808.29.

The broad-based S&P 500 edged up 0.1 percent to 7,806.21, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index also added 0.1 percent at 26,831.07.

"It's a summer Friday, a lot of people are on vacation or looking forward to vacation," said Steve Sosnick of Interactive Brokers.

Retail sales "should have caused a bit of reaction and they really didn't, which is just telling you that a lot of people are not in the mood to take big positions or really change their portfolios," Sosnick said.