Wall Street flat, tech offsets JPMorgan downdraft

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were little changed in choppy trading on Friday as a sharp selloff in banks due to a huge loss by JPMorgan was offset by strong technology shares.

JPMorgan said it lost at least $2 billion from a failed hedging strategy. The Dow component was down about 9 percent at $37.10 and weighed on the entire sector.

But the Nasdaq was up, outperforming the broader market, as Nvidia Corp shares rose 7.5 percent to $13.34 after the company reported adjusted first-quarter earnings that beat expectations. The stock boosted the Nasdaq and was the S&P 500's top percentage gainer. [ID:nL1E8GBHN5] Netflix shares shares were also up 7.1 percent at $77.50.

"JPMorgan will become a political issue. This will increase regulations on banks and the overhang on large banks will last for awhile," said Tim Ghriskey, who oversees about $2 billion as chief investment officer of Solaris Group in Bedford Hills, New York.

"But we are in a market that seems to be climbing the wall of worry and it seems like no matter how bad the news is, the market still wants to go up," he said.

Data showed U.S. consumer sentiment rose to its highest in more than four years in early May as Americans remained upbeat about the job market. The survey was a welcome sign amid worries that the economic recovery may be slowing down.

Still, the S&P 500 was on track for its second weekly decline, although investors were encouraged after the index has rebounded from 2-month lows hit on Wednesday and looks set to close once again above April lows.

Marc Pado, a U.S. market strategist at DowBull.com in San Francisco, said traders had helped the market bounce by closing short positions - bets that stocks will fall - after gains at the start of May.

"The trader types see that we came down to that 1,340 area on the S&P 500, started to bounce, started to see some buying, some bottom fishing, then you got that consumer sentiment number and that was compelling enough," he said.

JPMorgan estimates the business unit involved in the trading loss will lose $800 million in the current quarter, excluding private equity results and litigation expenses. The bank had previously expected the unit to earn a profit of about $200 million.

Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of the biggest U.S. bank by assets, cautioned that losses could grow by another $1 billion, another hurdle for a sector already besieged by the sovereign debt crisis in Europe and fears of slowing growth globally.

JP Morgan's news weighed on bank shares as investors feared both a greater risk of more regulation and the potential for more such losses at other banks. However, the stocks were off their lows of the morning.

Citigroup Inc lost 4 percent to $29.44 and the Financial Select Sector SPDR was off 0.9 percent to $14.85. The S&P financial sector fell 0.9 percent.

Financial stocks have been among the most volatile in recent months as investors question what the growth outlook for the United States and the debt crisis of Europe will mean for the group's profits. JPMorgan has fallen 12.2 percent this month.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down 16.35 points, or 0.13 percent, at 12,838.69. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was down 1.02 points, or 0.08 percent, at 1,356.97. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 9.55 points, or 0.33 percent, at 2,943.19.

The CBOE VIX Volatility Index is up 9 percent this month in a sign of growing caution, although it eased somewhat on Friday.

Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan's preliminary consumer confidence index for May improved to 77.8 from 76.4 in April, topping forecasts of 76.2.

Of the 453 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings to date for Q1 2012, 66.2 percent have reported earnings above analyst expectations, according to Thomson Reuters data.

That compares with more than 80 percent at the start of earnings season and is below the average for the past 4 quarters of 68 percent.

Shares of Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc jumped 77 percent to $6.45 after a panel of experts recommended approval of the company's obesity pill, a big step toward making it the first new diet drug on the U.S. market in more than a decade. The stock was the most actively traded on the Nasdaq composite.

(Editing by Dave Zimmerman)