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US markets move up after slump

24 April 2009 08:31 (UTC +04:00)

Baku- APA-Economics. About halfway through first-quarter earnings reports, Wall Street is still uncertain about the economy, AP reported.
The Dow Jones industrials are closing with a gain of about 70 points, or 0.9 percent, but only after another shaky, back-and-forth day of trading.
An unexpectedly large drop in home sales dashed hopes that the economy is patching one its biggest holes.

In late afternoon trading, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.72, or less than 0.1 percent, to 7,887.28.
Broader stock indicators were mixed. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 0.08, or less than 0.1 percent, to 843.63, and the Nasdaq composite index fell 7.50, or 0.5 percent, to 1,638.62.
The fluctuations came a day after stocks ended mostly lower on worries about the health of banks and concerns that the market has risen too fast since logging 12-year lows more than six weeks ago. The Dow is up about 20 percent since then.
In other trading Thursday, the Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 8.49, or 1.8 percent, to 462.22.
About eight stocks rose for every one seven that fell on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 1.14 billion shares.
Bond prices rose, pushing the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note down to 2.93 percent from 2.94 percent late Wednesday.
Light, sweet crude rose 77 cents to $49.62 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The dollar was mixed against other major currencies, while gold prices rose.
Overseas, Britain’s FTSE 100 fell 0.3 percent, Germany’s DAX index fell 1.2 percent, and France’s CAC-40 fell 0.6 percent. Japan’s Nikkei stock average rose 0.22 percent.