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World market indices mixed

03 August 2009 08:27 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Vahab Rzayev - APA-Economics. Traders aren’t making any big moves on the final day of the month, AP reports.
Investors reacted coolly to a report the nation’s economy continued to shrink, but at a smaller pace than expected.
The government said the nation’s gross domestic product, a measure of the economy’s total output, slowed at a rate of 1 percent during the quarter. That was better than the 1.5 percent drop expected by analysts.
The report also found that consumers cut their spending in the second quarter, a troubling sign as consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of all U.S. economic activity.
In midmorning trading, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 11.49, or 0.1 percent, to 9,142.97. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 3.25, or 0.3 percent, to 983.50, while the Nasdaq composite rose 3.30, or 0.2 percent, to 1,981.00.
The report has given investors pause after they extended a three-week rally on Thursday after welcoming a batch of stronger-than-expected earnings reports. Thursday’s gains pushed all the major indexes to their highest closes since last fall.
Earnings reports Thursday showed companies are still struggling amid the recession, but the problems aren’t as deep as investors were expecting heading into earnings season. The market was also boosted by a surprise drop in the number of people continuing to seek unemployment benefits.
The Dow rose to its highest level in nearly nine months with a gain of 84 points and the Nasdaq traded above 2,000 for the first time since October.
Bond prices rose. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, fell to 3.57 percent from 3.61 percent late Thursday.
The dollar fell, and gold prices rose.
Rising stocks narrowly outpaced those that fell on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 188.2 million shares compared with 224.9 million traded at the same point Thursday.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 1.28, or 0.2 percent, to 559.08.
Overseas, Japan’s Nikkei stock average rose 1.9 percent. In afternoon trading, Britain’s FTSE 100 fell 0.3 percent, Germany’s DAX index declined 0.6 percent, and France’s CAC-40 declined 0.5 percent.