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US indices rise while European stocks drop

25 September 2009 09:20 (UTC +04:00)

Baku- APA-Economics. Stock futures are indicating a slightly higher opening on Wall Street Thursday after investors got more good news about the jobs market, AP reported.
A day after the Federal Reserve said economic activity has improved, the Labor Department said the number of newly laid off workers seeking unemployment benefits fell for a third week in a row. Initial claims for unemployment insurance fell by 21,000 last week to 530,000, better than the 550,000 economists had expected.
The number of people continuing to claim benefits for more than a week also fell, dropping 123,000 to 6.14 million.
Stock futures were little changed ahead of the report.
Later Thursday, investors will get data on existing home sales in August from the National Association of Realtors. Investors are also focusing on the Group of 20 meeting of the world’s leading economies in Pittsburgh. World leaders are expected to discuss how best to keep reinvigorating their economies without repeating mistakes that led to the financial crisis last fall.
With housing, manufacturing and even consumer confidence showing signs of improvement in recent months, investors have come to believe the economy is indeed healing. But there are still concerns about how strong the recovery will be. Investors are also concerned that a stabilization of the economy won’t be sustainable once the government’s stimulus efforts are removed, though the Fed said Wednesday it will keep such props in place for some time.
Amid those lingering concerns, investors question how much more the stock market’s rally has to go. It’s been nearly seven months since stocks hit 12-year lows and the major market indicators have climbed more than 50 percent since then with little pause.
Ahead of the market’s open, Dow Jones industrial average futures rose 28, or 0.3 percent, to 9,745. Standard & Poor’s 500 index futures rose 3.80, or 0.4 percent, to 1,062.70, while Nasdaq 100 index futures rose 9.50, or 0.6 percent, to 1,735.
Commodities prices were mixed, while the dollar fell slightly against other major currencies. The dollar has weakened considerably this year amid massive government stimulus and low interest rates, which has been a boon to commodities and subsequently material and industrial stocks. Commodities are priced in U.S. dollars so a weak greenback makes them more appealing to foreign buyers.
Oil prices fell 47 cents to $68.50 a barrel in electronic premarket trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while gold and silver prices turned higher.
Bond prices were little moved ahead of an auction of seven-year notes. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, was unchanged at 3.43 percent.
Later Thursday, the National Association of Realtors is expected to report that home resales rose for the fifth straight month in August, more proof of a recovery in housing. Sales likely increased 2.1 percent to an annual rate of 5.35 million, from 5.24 million in July, according to economists polled by Thomson Reuters.
On Wednesday, stocks finished lower after the Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged and said the pace of economic activity has improved since August.
The Fed’s assessment, while slightly more upbeat than its earlier comments, did not come as a surprise to investors, and a brief rally in U.S. stocks that followed the statement quickly faded. The Dow Jones industrial average, which came within 82 points of 10,000, ended the day with a loss of 81.
In midday trading in Europe, Britain’s FTSE 100 was down 0.4 percent, Germany’s DAX index lost 0.5 percent, and France’s CAC-40 fell 0.5 percent. Earlier Thursday, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index dropped 2.5 percent, while Japan’s Nikkei stock average rose 1.7 percent.