Stocks Are Flat, Amazon Is Getting Crushed

The Dow is up 7 points, the S&P 500 is roughly unchanged, and the Nasdaq is up 5 points.

Overnight, futures traded lower after news late Thursday that a New York City doctor who was treating patients in West Africa had contracted the virus.

The quiet open for stocks comes at the end of what has been a big week for stocks, with the S&P 500 gaining more than 3% so far this week.

Stocks pared most of these losses through the morning and in early trade none of the major equity indexes were moving more than 0.2% in either direction.

On the economic data front, new home sales disappointed, as home sales came in at an annualized selling rate of 467,000 in September, which was just below expectations. The big news in the report was that August's data, which showed new home sales surged 18% to an annualized rate of 504,000, was revised sharply lower to an annualized rate of 466,000.

In stock news, the big mover was Amazon, which was down more than 6% in early trade after the online retailer last night reported a wider than expected loss per share.