U.S. stocks mixed after treasury secretary's remarks

U.S. stocks traded in a narrow range on Thursday, as investors assessed comments of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

At midday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 21.64 points, or 0.10 percent, to 20,797.24. The S&P 500 lost 3.01 points, or 0.13 percent, to 2,359.81. The Nasdaq Composite Index shed 37.95 points, or 0.65 percent, to 5,822.67.

Mnuchin said in an interview with CNBC earlier on Thursday that he wanted to see a "very significant" tax reform passed before Congress' August recess.

"We want to get this done by the August recess. We've been working closely with the leadership in the House and the Senate and we're looking at a combined plan," he said.

U.S. equities have posted sharp gains since Trump won the presidential election last November, as investors bet that he would pursue massive corporate tax cuts, deregulation and infrastructure spending.

Meanwhile, Wall Street still digested the minutes from the U.S. Federal Reserve's latest meeting.

The Federal Reserve officials expressed their confidence in the economy, saying the next interest rate hike would be "fairly soon," as shown in the minutes of the agency's latest monetary policy meeting on Wednesday.

"Many participants expressed the view that it might be appropriate to raise the federal funds rate again fairly soon if incoming information on the labor market and inflation was in line with or stronger than their current expectations or if the risks of overshooting the Committee's maximum employment and inflation objectives increased," read the minutes.

On the economic front, in the week ending Feb. 18, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 244,000, an increase of 6,000 from the revised level of the previous week, said the U.S. Labor Department on Thursday. Endit