Bourse

Home page

Bourse

World market indices mixed

17 June 2009 08:18 (UTC +04:00)

Baku- APA-Economics. Lackluster data on the economy is keeping the market’s spring rally on hold.
Stocks were lower Tuesday afternoon after rising slightly in morning trading on better-than-expected data on home construction, building permits and inflation. A later report showed the seventh straight drop in industrial production, sapping the market’s effort to move higher.
The slide follows a much larger drop in stocks on Monday, indicating that investors are still nervous that a three-month surge in the market might have gone too far. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index is still up 35 percent from the 12-year lows it hit in March.
In late afternoon trading, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 78.14, or 0.9 percent, to 8,533.99, after earlier rising as much as 31 points. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 9.13, or 1 percent, to 914.59, while the Nasdaq composite index fell 13.97, or 0.8 percent, to 1,802.41.
On Monday, the Dow tumbled 187 points, or 2.1 percent, putting it back into the red for the year. Last week, the blue chips were up on the year for the first time since January. A stronger dollar sent commodity prices tumbling Monday and that put pressure on energy and material stocks.
But the dollar resumed its three-month fall against other major currencies Tuesday, pushing prices for commodities higher.
Light, sweet crude pared early gains and fell 7 cents to $70.55 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
In corporate news, Best Buy Co.’s first-quarter earnings fell 15 percent as consumers cut back on items like appliances and digital cameras. The stock tumbled $2.86, or 7.4 percent, to $35.80.
About two stocks fell for every one that rose on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 743.4 million shares, down from 810.9 million shares the same time a day earlier.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 7.22, or 1.4 percent, to 504.61.
Overseas, Japan’s Nikkei stock average slid 2.9 percent. Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.1 percent, Germany’s DAX index rose 0.02 percent, and France’s CAC-40 slipped 0.2 percent. Source: AP