<p>Wall Street eked out small gains on Thursday after a series of mixed economic data. </p><br /><p>The Commerce Department said on Thursday that although new durable goods orders posted their biggest gain last month since January 2010, business spending was still flat in September.</p><br /><p>Separate data released by the Labor Department showed that the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell last week, which could be a sign that the labor market is slowly healing.</p><br /><p>Other data released Thursday indicated that the National Association of Realtors U.S. Pending Home Sales Index for September rose only modestly in September.</p>
