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US stocks end flat, oil shares tumble

New York - Petroleum-linked shares tumbled on Thursday as oil prices continued to retreat, pressuring US stocks even as President Donald Trump scored a win in Congress with a health care reform bill.

Oil producers such as ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips and oil-services companies including Halliburton dropped as US oil prices fell nearly five percent to end at $45.72 a barrel, the lowest closing price of 2017.

Analysts said investors were heartened by a narrow vote by the House of Representatives in favour of Trump's plan for dismantling much of Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act.

But the vote had little effect on stocks because passage had been expected and the proposal faces a long road to passage in the divided Senate.

Health care reform is "important," but "they've still got to grind through the next step," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Wunderlich Securities.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped less than 0.1% to close the session at 20 951.47.

The broad-based S&P 500 added 0.1% to 2 389.52, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index won 0.1% to 6 075.34.

Tesla Motors lost 5.0% as it reported a net loss of $330m in the first quarter, far wider than the $121m deficit a year earlier.

Viacom dropped 7.1% after executives acknowledged that Charter Communications had moved some of its top networks into higher-priced cable packages, potentially hurting demand for the channels.

Costco Wholesale rose 1.5% after it reported a three percent rise in same store sales for April. Rival Wal-Mart Stores gained 0.8%.

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