US stocks close flat

New York - US stocks pulled back in the final 30 minutes of trade on Tuesday to break even after a day in the red under the weight of more eurozone gloom.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average clawed back from a 92 point loss to end up 4.24 points at 12 878.28.

The broad-based S&P 500 closed down 1.27 points to 1 350.50, while the Nasdaq Composite added 0.44 at 2 931.83.

Moody's ratings and outlook downgrades of nine EU countries and problems with the impending Greek rescue deal kept a cloud over the market for most of the session.

But stocks got some help from from new data on US retail sales in January, which grew 0.4% in a month, a pickup from December's flat performance.

Analysts had mixed views of the data: it was an upturn from the poor fourth quarter, but not as large as hoped.

"Despite the lower-than-expected total sales, 'core' retail sales, the trend-defining component, rebounded dynamically," said Harm Bandholz of Unicredit.

Bank of America, down 3.3%, led the losers among the Dow blue chips while Hewlett-Packard was the biggest gainer, up 1.2%.

Just listed in December, fashion house Michael Kors leapt 27.2% after reporting a 40% jump in net earnings in its third quarter results, beating forecasts.

Popular clothing and accessories chain Fossil put on 14.7% after predicting a strong year helped by its recent purchase of Danish watchmaker Skagen.

Cloud computing service Rackspace Hosting surged 12.6% after turning in an 85% climb in fourth quarter net income, well over analysts' expectations.

Yahoo shares sank 4.7% on a media report that talks on selling off its Asian holdings had hit an impasse.

Bond prices rose.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 1.92% from 1.99% on Monday, while the 30-year slipped to 3.07% from 3.14%.

Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions.