The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq were all... basically flat...

after what had been a choppy session, during which the S&P briefly surpassed its record closing high hit in January 2022.

The U.S. Labor Department reported that consumer prices rose more than expected in December, with Americans paying more for healthcare and housing.

That pressured stocks - but perhaps shouldn't have, says Melissa Brown, Managing Director of Applied Research at SimCorp

"The numbers seem to come mainly from - or I think it was 2/3 of it came from increased housing costs. And I think that is actually one reason to not be particularly worried or concerned that inflation is turning around and going back up. I think there's some lag in the way that housing costs are accounted for in the inflation numbers. And we've actually seen, if you look at other measures of housing costs, they're actually coming down."

In company news, Microsoft briefly overtook Apple as the world's most valuable company. The iPhone maker's shares have dropped nearly 4% since the year began due to concerns over falling demand. Microsoft's shares rose half a percent Thursday while Apple shed a third of a percent.

Crypto stocks reversed early gains, with Coinbase shedding more than 6.5%, Bitfarms plunging more than 13% and Riot Platforms losing nearly 16%. The SEC a day earlier approved the first spot ETFs to track bitcoin.

And Citigroup fell more than 1.5% after a filing showed the lender booked about $3.8 billion in combined charges and reserves that will erode its fourth-quarter earnings, due to be reported on Friday.

Other banks fell, including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, which also report Friday.