Wall Street opens flat for the second straight day

• Mixed earnings figures weigh on the market sentiment.
• Industrials and materials post modest gains in the early trade. 

Major equity indexes in the United States, which struggled to find direction yesterday, started the day virtually unchanged as investors are assessing the latest second-quarter earnings figures. As of writing, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.3 points on the day while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite were down 1 and 3.4 points, respectively.

Earlier today, Wells Fargo reported a higher quarterly profit for the Q2 while JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs painted a mixed picture with regards to their performance. In the early trade, the S&P 500 Financials Index up 0.25% on a daily basis.

Meanwhile, today's data from the U.S. showed that retail sales in June expanded more than expected on a monthly basis but the Consumer Staples and the Consumer Discretionary indexes largely ignored the data and were flat on the day. Among the winners, the Materials and the Industrials Indexes are both up 0.7% on the day.