Stock Market Today: Stocks Struggle for Direction After Mixed Data Choppy is the best word to describe how stocks behaved Thursday, with the major indexes spending the session bouncing between positive and negative territory. In focus today was the release of several economic reports, with weak housing data drawing the most attention. The National Association of Realtors this morning said existing home sales fell for a sixth straight month in July – down 5.9% from June to a seasonally adjusted rate of 4.81 million homes. On a year-over-year basis, existing home sales were off 20.2%. SEE MORE Buffett Buys More Apple, Chevron, Occidental Petroleum, in Q2 "Outside of the initial months of the pandemic, existing home sales in July fell to the lowest level since 2015," says Jeffrey Roach, chief economist for independent broker-dealer LPL Financial. "A slowdown in housing has real economic impacts across the economy. For the demographic without home equity or a fixed-rate mortgage, inflationary pressures are acute and, unfortunately, rent prices are accelerating." Also on the data front, the Labor Department this morning said weekly jobless claims edged down 2,000 last week to 250,000.