U.S. Stocks in 6 Weeks of Losses; For the Year Indexes Flat

Bikram Pandey
10 Jun, 2011
New York City

U.S. indexes closed sharply lower on the anxieties related to economic worries. The Dow and S&P 500 declined more than 1% and fell for the sixth week in a row and the Nasdaq dropped 1.5% and declined for the fifth in the last six weeks. Saudi Arabia said it is prepared to increase oil output.

[R]4:15 PM New York – U.S. indexes closed sharply lower on the anxieties related to economic worries. The Dow and S&P 500 declined more than 1% and fell for the sixth week in a row and the Nasdaq dropped 1.5% and declined for the fifth in the last six weeks. Saudi Arabia said it is prepared to increase oil output after the OPEC meeting.[/R]

The U.S. indexes traded lower after disappointing global economic data.

The Dow extended losses for the sixth week in a row for the first time since October 2002. The index declined 1.4% today and lost more than 4% in the last six weeks wiping out all the gains in the year. The S&P 500 index lost 1.5% and declined 4.9% since the peak six weeks ago.

The S&P 500, the Dow and the Nasdaq are flat in the year so far.

U.S. import prices rose 0.2% in May. Avaya filed for IPO of $1 billion. Private equity firms KKR and TPG withdrew bid for Nokia Siemens. Qualcomm agreed to acquire the assets of Rapid Bridge.

Air Products targets total revenues of more than $15 billion in 2015. Brown-Forman fourth quarter net income surged 128% to $165.4 million. lululemon first quarter net income in the quarter surged 70.3% to $33.37 million. Toyota estimates fiscal year 2012 net income to drop 31% to 280 billion yen.

The UK indexes declined after industrial production fell more than estimated and manufacturing output dropped in April. The UK output price inflation slowed to 5.3% annually in May. Irish manufacturing output improved in April.

The benchmark index in Tokyo closed higher for the fourth day in a row. Toyota estimated current fiscal year sales to declined 2% and unit sales to drop to 7.24 million and net profit to slump 31%.

Australian indexes edged higher after the government released mining tax legislation. Market sentiment was buoyed after exports from China rose at a faster pace than anticipated. Origin Energy completed the sale of 500 million euros bonds.

Commodities, Bonds and Currencies

The 10-year bond yield increased to 2.97% and 30-year bond eased to 4.19%.

The U.S. dollar increased to $1.435 to a euro and rose against the Japanese yen to 80.34 yen.

Immediate delivery futures of Texas crude oil decreased $2.66 to $99.27 a barrel and futures of natural gas rose 0.08 cents to $4.76 per mbtu and gasoline price fell 2.26 cents to 301.72 cents a gallon.

In metals trading, copper decreased 5.05 cents to $4.05 per pound, gold fell $8.70 to $1,534.00 per ounce and silver eased $0.99 to $36.43.