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Market indices plunge worldwide

11 August 2009 07:48 (UTC +04:00)

Baku- APA-Economics. With the stock market in a bit of a news lull, investors weren’t making any big moves.
Stocks edged lower Monday in absence of any major corporate or economic developments. Investors are also cautious ahead of earnings reports from major retailers and a two-day meeting of the Federal Reserve on interest rates that starts Tuesday.
The day’s modest action wasn’t surprising after major indicators jumped 1 percent last week, including Friday’s surge in response to the government’s stronger-than-expected jobs report.
In midday trading, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 26.67, or 0.3 percent, to 9,343.40. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 3.19, or 0.3 percent, to 1,007.29, while the Nasdaq composite index fell 7.31, or 0.4 percent, to 1,992.94.
Falling stocks narrowly outnumbered those that rose on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 408.1 million shares, compared with 600 million Friday.
The market’s pullbacks are likely to be small, Place said, because there is enough cash still being held by investors to meet dips in the market with buying.
In corporate news, McDonald’s Corp. said sales at restaurants open at least 13 months rose 4.3 percent in July. The nation’s largest hamburger chain rose 94 cents, or 1.7 percent, to $56.14.
In other trading Monday, bond prices rose. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, fell to 3.81 percent from 3.86 percent late Friday.
The dollar was mixed against other major currencies, while gold prices fell.
Light, sweet crude rose 9 cents to $71.02 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 0.65, or 0.1 percent, to 573.05.
Overseas, Asian markets rose on a positive report on Japanese machinery orders, a key indicator of corporate capital spending. Japan’s Nikkei stock average rose 1.1 percent.
Britain’s FTSE 100 slipped 0.2 percent, Germany’s DAX index lost 0.8 percent, and France’s CAC-40 fell 0.5 percent.