US STOCKS-S&P 500 touches record high as Wall St eyes trade talks

(For a live blog on the U.S. stock market, click LIVE/ or
type LIVE/ in a news window.)
* Pence delays China speech amid "positive signs" on talks
* Energy sector gains as crude prices rise
* Indexes: Dow +0.10%, S&P 500 -0.06%, Nasdaq -0.24%

(Updates to afternoon)
By Noel Randewich
June 21 (Reuters) - Wall Street was little changed on
Friday, as U.S. Vice President Mike Pence's decision to defer a
speech on China policy increased optimism on upcoming trade
talks between Washington and Beijing, though tensions between
the United States and Iran undercut sentiment.
The S&P 500 briefly hit a record high.
Pence called off a planned China speech that had been cast
initially as a sequel to a blistering broadside he delivered in
October, a move aimed at averting increasing tensions with
Beijing, a White House official said. The benchmark S&P 500 index .SPX hit an intraday record
high of 2,964.15, but then stepped back as the rising tensions
between the United States and Iran kept investors on edge.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping
are expected to restart trade talks at the Group of 20 summit in
Japan next week, on June 28-29.
"People will be focusing on what happens at the G20 with
Presidents Trump and Xi," said Kurt Brunner, portfolio manager
with the Swarthmore Group in Philadelphia. Any indication of
progress from Trump following the meeting would be positive for
Wall Street, he said.
Stocks were set to log a third straight week of gains, after
posting their worst monthly performance this year in May on
fears the prolonged trade war would hit global economic growth.
Trump said on Friday he aborted a military strike on Iran in
response to Teheran's downing of a U.S. drone but
the possibility of a U.S. retaliation pushed crude prices higher
and helped lift the energy sector .SPNY by 0.49%. O/R
Traders also pointed to higher volatility on Friday on
account of "quadruple witching," when investors unwind interests
in futures and options contracts prior to expiration.
At 2:19 pm ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI was
up 0.1% at 26,780.05 points, while the S&P 500 .SPX lost 0.06%
to 2,952.46. The Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped 0.24% to
8,031.71.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq was weighed down by a 2.3% fall in
PayPal Holdings Inc PYPL.O after the digital payments company
said its chief operating officer, Bill Ready, would step down.
CarMax Inc KMX.N rose as much as 3.4% to a record high
after the used-vehicles retailer posted quarterly results above
analysts' expectations.
Carnival Corp CCL.N fell for a second day, down 4.3%, and
among the biggest decliners. Several brokerages trimmed their
share price targets after the cruise operator cut its 2019
profit forecast.
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a
1.51-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.95-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted 34 new 52-week highs and two new lows;
the Nasdaq Composite recorded 45 new highs and 54 new lows.