Stock Market Update

[BRIEFING.COM] Today is a day where the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.3%) is trailing the Nasdaq Composite (flat) and S&P 500 (+0.1%). The underperformance isn't stark by any means for the price-weighted average, which is up 4.4% year-to-date, including today's move.

It is a split picture in the Dow at the moment with 15 components up and 15 components down.

UnitedHealth Group (UNH 501.61, +0.88, +0.2%), one of the higher-priced Dow components, is up modestly following a CNBC report that its UnitedHealthcare unit is offering buyouts to certain employees in its benefits operations department as it aims to cut costs, but could resort to layoffs if not enough employees accept the buyout plan.

Microsoft (MSFT 411.87, +2.23, +0.5%) is another high-priced component helping to offset losses in other components, having gotten a boost from the announcement that it developed the world's first quantum computing chip, Majorana 1, using Topological Core architecture.

Goldman Sachs (GS 666.94, -5.25, -0.8%), Home Depot (HD 394.80, -8.51, -2.1%), and Caterpillar (CAT 350.70, -3.30, -0.9%) are among the biggest drags.