Wall Street pares gains in volatile trade; investors turn to defensives

(Reuters) - Wall Street’s three main indexes gave up most of their earlier gains in volatile trading on Friday that traders blamed on the expiration of stock futures and options, with only the defensive sectors of the market staying consistently higher, highlighting concerns of slowing growth.

At 11:20 a.m. EDT the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 52.07 points, or 0.23 percent, at 22,911.67, the S&P 500 was up 0.23 points, or 0.01 percent, at 2,467.65 and the Nasdaq Composite was down 43.62 points, or 0.67 percent, at 6,484.79.

Reporting by Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta