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US stocks down, while Europeans up

04 February 2010 07:50 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA-Economics. Stocks on Wall Street have retreated after the biggest two-day rally since October as service industries turned in disappointing results, National Business Review reported.

Home Depot and American Express lost more than 1.6%, helping lead declines in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

The Dow shed 26.30 points, or 0.3%, to close at 10,270.55..

Pfizer slumped 2.7% after the drugmakerâ€™s earnings trailed analyst estimates because of higher costs from its acquisition of Wyeth.

McDonaldâ€™s increased the most in the Dow, rising 1.8% after Goldman Sachs added it to its â€œconviction buyâ€ list.

News Corporation surged 5% for the biggest gain in the S&P 500. The media company that owns the Twentieth Century Fox film studio and the Wall Street Journal reported second-quarter profit that beat analystsâ€™ estimates and raised its 2010 earnings forecast after Avatar broke box-office records.

The S&P 500 Index slipped 0.5% to 1097.28 after rising 2.7% in the past two days. The Nasdaq Composite Index finished virtually unchanged at 2190 2183.

Canadian stocks fell for the first time this week as financial shares declined after US service industries gained less than forecast and MetLife released financial results that disappointed investors.

Sun Life Financial lost 1.1% after MetLifeâ€™s book value missed its December forecast. Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan increased 4.5% after Belarusian Potash boosted Asian prices 6.5% on stronger demand.

The S&P/TSX Composite Index retreated 8.75 points, or 0.1%, to 11,399.59.

European stocks declined, halting a three-day advance for the Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index, on concern Greece and Portugal will have difficulty curbing their deficits and worse-than-estimated earnings from Electrolux.

The Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index retreated 0.2% to 251.54, after rising as much as 0.4%.

National benchmark indexes declined in 14 of the 18 western European markets today.

London’s FTSE 100 was 0.2% higher at 5295.05, Frankfurt’s DAX was up 0.4% at 5729.91 and Paris’ CAC-40 was up 0.4% at 3825.38.