Summary: Stocks held at the flatline in midday trading Wednesday with no big moves being made on Wall Street. Trading is at light volume as investors head into the Thanksgiving holiday. The University of Michigan sentiment index was up in October from the month before but still came in below expectations at 88.8. Pending home sales surprisingly dropped 1.1% percent in October. Sales of new single-family homes rose for a third straight month but still came in below expectations at 458,000 units. Shares of Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) are soaring above 4%, a day after it reported Q4 sales declined. Deere (DE) is slightly lower on disappointing sales projections for its farm-equipment. Hertz (HTZ) is giving up earlier gains. The stock spiked on Carl Icahn raising his stake in the car rental company. The activist investor was pleased with the moves at the top tweeting, 'the company hired an excellent CEO.'
