Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.1%; Nasdaq Composite UNCH; S&P 500 -0.1%; Nasdaq 100 UNCH; Russell 2000 +0.4%; S&P 400 +0.1%

The stock market held a modest gain throughout the majority of Thursday's session, but increased selling pressure in the final hour of action dragged the major averages from their best marks of the day. The S&P 500 traded as high as +0.3%, but finished with a loss of 0.1%. The Dow (-0.1%) also finished with slim loss while the Nasdaq (unch) settled just a tick above its unchanged mark.

Equities opened Thursday's session slightly lower, but ticked up into positive territory after the Senate released its version of the healthcare reform bill. The Senate's version would roll back the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion more gradually than the version that the House passed last month, but the cuts to Medicaid would be larger in total under the Senate's bill. However, in general, the two versions of the bill are very similar.

Lawmakers were hoping to vote on the bill before the July 4th recess, but Senate Republicans currently do not have enough votes to pass the piece of legislation. Senators Rand Paul (R-KY), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Ron Johnson (R-WI) confirmed that they oppose the bill as it does not fully repeal the Affordable Care Act.

The health care sector (+1.1%) was strong from start to finish on Thursday, settling at the top of the day's leaderboard by a comfortable margin. Nearly all of the sector's components finished in positive territory, but the biotechnology industry exhibited particular strength, advancing the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 320.11, +4.01) higher by 1.3%. Today's win marks the fourth in a row for the IBB, which now trades higher by 9.4% for the week.

As for the remaining advancers, gains were relatively modest with no group adding more than 0.2%. The top-weighted technology sector (+0.1%) managed to settled a step ahead of the broader market, but its components were pretty evenly mixed between green and red. Oracle (ORCL 50.30, +3.97) was the sector's top-performer, jumping 8.6%, after the company beat top and bottom line estimates and issued upbeat guidance.

Crude oil managed to break its three-day losing streak with WTI crude finishing higher by 0.5% at $42.74/bbl. However, the commodity drifted from its session high in the afternoon, eventually settling in the middle of the day's trading range. The energy sector (-0.1%) also slipped in the afternoon, retracing all of the modest gain it held throughout the morning.

The heavily-weighted financial sector (-0.6%) was weak throughout Thursday's session and eventually finished in negative territory for the third day in a row. The consumer staples (-0.7%) and utilities (-0.4%) groups also closed notably lower while the remaining laggards--consumer discretionary, industrials, and telecom services--finished with losses of no more than 0.2%.

U.S. Treasuries settled modestly higher across the curve with the benchmark 10-yr yield slipping one basis point to 2.15%. The U.S. Dollar Index (97.25, +0.03) ended the day little changed.

Investor participation was below average as fewer than 900 million shares changed hands at the NYSE floor (50-day simple moving average: 1.0 billion).

Reviewing today's economic data, which included Initial Claims, May Leading Indicators, and the April FHFA Housing Price Index:

• The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 241,000 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 240,000. Today's tally was above the revised prior week count of 238,000 (from 237,000). As for continuing claims, they rose to 1.944 million from the revised count of 1.936 million (from 1.935 million).
  • The key takeaway from this report is that it will feed expectations for another decent-sized gain in nonfarm payrolls since it encompassed the week in which the survey for the June employment report was conducted.
• The Conference Board's Leading Indicators report for May increased 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) after moving higher by a revised 0.2% in April (from 0.3%).
  • The key takeaway from the report is that strengths among the leading indicators have remained more widespread than weaknesses.
• The FHFA Housing Price Index for April increased 0.7%, which followed a revised uptick of 0.7% (from 0.6%) in March.

Friday's lone economic report--May New Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus 599,000)--will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

• Nasdaq Composite +15.9% YTD
• S&P 500 +8.7% YTD
• Dow Jones Industrial Average +8.3% YTD
• Russell 2000 +3.5% YTD

Sector performance as indicated by corresponding ETFs: Technology +0.1% (+19.0% YTD), Health Care +1.1% (+17.0% YTD), Consumer Discretionary -0.2% (+10.2% YTD), Utilities -0.4% (+9.8% YTD), Industrials -0.2% (+7.9% YTD), Materials +0.2% (+7.9% YTD), Consumer Staples -0.7% (+7.8% YTD), Real Estate +0.1% (+5.3% YTD), Financials -0.6% (+3.1% YTD), Telecom Services -0.1% (-11.7% YTD), Energy -0.1% (-15.0% YTD)