US STOCKS-Wall St near flat; banks, energy shares slip

* Macy's climbs after earnings

* SeaWorld tumbles after earnings

* Dow down 0.1 pct, S&P 500 off 0.1 pct, Nasdaq up 0.2 pct (Updates to afternoon, changes byline)

By Caroline Valetkevitch

NEW YORK, Nov 12 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks were nearly even on Wednesday afternoon, pausing after a series of record highs in the Dow and S&P 500, while financial shares lost ground after global regulators fined five major banks.

Energy shares also dipped along with oil prices. Shares (Frankfurt: DI6.F - news) of Exxon Mobil (Swiss: XOM.SW - news) were down 0.9 percent.

The banks, including UBS AG (NYSEArca: FBGX - news) , HSBC Holdings (HKSE: 0005.HK - news) Plc and Citigroup Inc (NYSE: C - news) , were fined $3.4 billion for failing to stop their traders from trying to manipulate the foreign exchange market.

Citigroup, which will pay $1.02 billion to settle the probe, dipped 0.8 percent, while JPMorgan Chase (Swiss: JPM.SW - news) , which is also facing a penalty, fell 1.5 percent and was among the biggest drags on the S&P 500. The S&P financial index lost 0.4 percent.

The Dow and S&P 500 had closed at record highs for a fifth session on Tuesday. The S&P 500 marked its 40th new closing high of the year, versus 45 in 2013. The last five-day streak of record highs was in May 2013, and the next longest was eight days in June 1997.

"This is a pause. There hasn't been any horrible news pressing down the market," said Kim Forrest, senior equity research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh.

At 2:08 p.m., the Dow Jones industrial average fell 12.02 points, or 0.07 percent, to 17,602.88, the S&P 500 lost 2.03 points, or 0.1 percent, to 2,037.65 and the Nasdaq Composite added 10.21 points, or 0.22 percent, to 4,670.76.

The S&P 500 has rallied more than 9 percent from a six-month low in October, buoyed by supportive economic data and corporate earnings. For the year so far, it is up more than 10 percent.

Among the biggest decliners on the New York Stock Exchange, SeaWorld Entertainment (NYSE: SEAS - news) slumped 9.6 percent after quarterly earnings fell short of expectations.

Among the day's gainers, Macy's Inc rose 4.7 percent after it posted third-quarter earnings and revised its full-year outlook. Shares of J.C. Penney were up 6.7 percent.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 1,562 to 1,441, for a 1.08-to-1 ratio on the upside; on the Nasdaq, 1,512 issues rose and 1,126 fell for a 1.34-to-1 ratio. (Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Nick Zieminski)