Wall Street has opened mostly flat, with investors refraining from making bets in a volatile market battered by a stream of weak economic data.

Investors were disappointed as the government reported wholesale prices plunged a record amount in October. The Labor Department's Producer Price Index fell 2.8 percent last month, the biggest decline on records that go back more than 60 years.

However, they are drawing some encouragement about corporate earnings as computer maker Hewlett-Packard says it expects fiscal fourth-quarter and 2009 results that beat Wall Street forecasts.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 16 points to the 8,258 level.