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Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (109926)	3/25/2010 4:44:34 PM
From: DebtBomb	Respond to of 116555

Wall Street finishes flat after auction, debt concerns NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks ended flat on Thursday, dropping off earlier highs as a weak U.S. bond auction and global debt concerns continued to weigh on investor sentiment. Indexes advanced for most of the session, with the Dow and S&P hitting fresh 18-month highs, but their gains mostly disappeared after the auction of seven-year notes and comments from European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet on issues surrounding Greece's sovereign debt. Trichet told France's Public Senat television that if the IMF or some other body exercises the responsibility in lieu of the Eurogroup or instead of governments, "it is evidently very, very bad." "We are losing our stock gains because of the threat of rising U.S. yields and the weakening of the euro," said Tom Sowanick, chief investment officer of the Omnivest Group in Princeton, New Jersey. The session's early gains came after both Qualcomm and Best Buy gave bullish profit outlooks, an encouraging sign ahead of the upcoming earnings season. The Dow Jones industrial average (^DJI - News) was up 5.06 points, or 0.05 percent, to end at 10,841.21. But the Standard & Poor's 500 Index (^SPX - News) was down 1.99 points, or 0.17 percent, at 1,165.73. And the Nasdaq Composite Index (^IXIC - News) was down 1.35 points, or 0.06 percent, at 2,397.41. ORACLE DROPS AFTER THE BELL Oracle Corp (NasdaqGS:ORCL - News) shares slipped 0.7 percent to $25.86 in extended trading after reporting adjusted third-quarter earnings that beat expectations by a penny. This was in contrast to the regular session, when Oracle jumped 1.1 percent to end at $26.04 on Nasdaq. During the regular session, Bank of America Corp (BAC - News) ended 1 percent higher at $17.74 while peer bank Citigroup (C - News), the most active stock on the New York Stock Exchange, ended up 2.9 percent at $4.27. Earlier, Bloomberg News reported that the U.S. Treasury could unveil a plan next month for the sale of its stake in the bank. Banks are among the best performers this year and were one of the few sectors to rise on Wednesday when markets fell on fears related to global sovereign debt. Wireless chip maker Qualcomm Inc (QCOM - News) gained 5 percent to $42.19 on Nasdaq after raising its second-quarter earnings outlook while Best Buy (BBY - News) advanced 3.6 percent to $42.66 on the New York Stock Exchange after a better-than-expected outlook and results. "Since the outlooks are obviously forward looking, they're signs of encouraging things to come," said Peter Lewis, fund manager at Murphy Capital Management in Gladstone, New Jersey. "We continue to expect strong earnings" this season. First-quarter S&P 500 earnings reports, due in the coming weeks, are forecast to show year-over-year gains of 36.6 percent, according to estimates compiled by Thomson Reuters. Also on Thursday, data showed the number of U.S. workers filing new applications for unemployment insurance fell sharply last week. About 10 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, above last year's estimated daily average of 9.65 billion. Decliners outnumbered advancers by a ratio of 3 to 2 on the New York Stock Exchange, while on the Nasdaq, about eight stocks fell for every five that rose. finance.yahoo.com