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World market indices mixed

13 May 2009 10:13 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Vahab Rzayev - APA-Economics. Investors were hard-pressed Tuesday to find a reason to extend Wall Street’s two-month rally, AP reported.
Stocks fluctuated but mostly fell as investors shifted into defensive corners of the market, driving up shares of drugmakers like Pfizer Inc. and drink maker Coca-Cola Inc., which tend to hold up better in economic downturns.
In late afternoon trading, the Dow rose 44.37, or 0.5 percent, to 8,463.14 after falling 155 on Monday. The S&P 500 index fell 4.08, or 0.5 percent, to 905.16 and the Nasdaq composite index fell 20.39, or 1.2 percent, to 1,710.85.

In other trading, the Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 12.26, or 2.4 percent, to 489.68 after a rally Friday vaulted it in the black for the year.
Three stocks fell for every two that rose on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 1.07 billion shares.
Bond prices edged higher after the Federal Reserve bought about $6 billion in government debt as part of its effort to drive down interest rates and reduce the costs of loans like mortgages.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note slipped to 3.16 percent from 3.17 percent late Monday.
The dollar was mixed against other major currencies, while gold prices rose.
Overseas, Britain’s FTSE 100 slipped 0.2 percent, Germany’s DAX index lost 0.3 percent, and France’s CAC-40 fell 0.5 percent. Japan’s Nikkei stock average fell 1.6 percent.