Nov 17 (Reuters) - The U.S. stock market remained subdued on Friday as remarks from Federal Reserve officials created uncertainty regarding the onset of interest rate cuts.

Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision, Michael Barr, stated that he believes the central bank is either at or nearing the peak of interest rate hikes. However, San Francisco Fed Chief Mary Daly and Boston Fed President Susan Collins emphasized the need for more evidence of cooling inflation before considering policy easing measures.

The market reaction to these comments resulted in mixed performance among megacap stocks. Microsoft (MSFT.O) and Alphabet (GOOGL.O) experienced declines of 1.1% and 2.1% respectively.

Thomas Hayes, Chairman at Great Hill Capital LLC, noted that Daly's comments about the Fed grappling with uncertainty over the outlook and policy lags may have contributed to the lower market performance. Hayes further added, "It would be normal to see some small consolidation before we push higher, but zooming out, managers are still pessimistic."

Although money markets have already priced in a steady rate hold by the Fed at its December meeting, bets of at least a 25-basis-point rate cut in May currently stand at nearly 61%, slightly lower than the earlier prediction of 69%, according to the CME Group's FedWatch tool.

In terms of sector performance, the communication services index (.SPLRCL) led declines among the 11 major S&P 500 sectors. Conversely, energy shares (.SPNY) rose by 2.0% as oil prices gained.

The small-cap Russell 2000 index (.RUT) outperformed broader markets, climbing by 1.0% and eyeing weekly gains of nearly 5%.

For the week, Wall Street's three main indexes are expected to gain nearly 2%, marking their third straight week of gains. Additionally, the S&P 500 (.SPX) and the Dow (.DJI) are on track for their longest weekly winning streaks since July, whereas the Nasdaq (.IXIC) is poised for its longest streak of weekly gains since June.

At 12:01 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) was down 16.34 points, or 0.05%, at 34,929.13, the S&P 500 (.SPX) slipped 0.43 points, or 0.01%, to 4,507.81, and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) lost 13.04 points, or 0.09%, closing at 14,100.63.

In terms of market breadth, advancing issues outweighed decliners by a ratio of 2.13-to-1 on the NYSE and 1.77-to-1 on the Nasdaq.

The S&P index recorded 14 new 52-week highs and one new low, while the Nasdaq saw 39 new highs and 64 new lows.