Stocks in U.S. Start the Day Slightly Mixed

The Dow and S&P were both up at the bell Friday morning, but the Nasdaq was slightly off. American Express cheered investors some, but Microsoft was sagging.
By Sarina Penn ,

Updated from 8:34 a.m. EDT

Stocks in the U.S. were narrowly mixed at the open Friday as investors digested another mixed bag of earnings reports and more upward moves for the U.S. dollar.

The

Dow Jones Industrial Average

rose 36 points to 12,884, and the S&P 500 added 5 points to 1394, but the

Nasdaq Composite

was off 4 points at 2425.

American Express

(AXP) - Get Report

helped prop up the Dow after the credit-card company's first-quarter profit drop wasn't as steep as analysts were expecting, thanks to its international presence. AmEx also reaffirmed its above-consensus view for the full year. Shares climbed 4%.

Weighing on tech shares, however, was fellow Dow member

Microsoft

(MSFT) - Get Report

. Shares of the software giant sagged 5% after it offered soft guidance for the fiscal fourth quarter, even as it projected more robust numbers for fiscal 2009 and bested last quarter's analyst targets.

Elsewhere in the tech space

Western Digital

(WDC) - Get Report

beat top- and bottom-line analyst views for the fiscal third quarter, and issued profit guidance of 77 cents to 83 cents a share in the fourth quarter. Wall Street is looking for 80 cents. The company said a bigger-than-expected decline in demand for its products should weigh on current-quarter sales. Shares were off 3.2%.

Goodyear

(GT) - Get Report

, however, was up 5.7% after the tire maker reported swinging to a profit on a "record" top line of $4.9 billion. The company also trounced Street profit views on an adjusted basis.

Meanwhile, the dollar was firmer by another 0.6% against the euro at $1.5597. Against the yen, it was rising to 104.34.

In the last session, the major averages closed on an upswing, in spite of some poor earnings, thanks to a surging greenback and cooling crude oil prices. At the end of the day, the Dow rose 86 points to 12,849, and the

S&P 500

added 9 points to 1389. The Nasdaq climbed 24 points to 2429.

Among the new day's research calls,

Wal-Mart

(WMT) - Get Report

was upgraded to buy from neutral at Merrill Lynch, while

Ford

(F) - Get Report

was downgraded at JPMorgan, Bear Stearns and Merrill a day after the automaker's earnings-inspired rally.

Oppenheimer initiated three ethanol stocks,

Pacific Ethanol

(PEIX) - Get Report

,

VeraSun

(VSE)

and

Aventine Renewable Energy

(AVR)

, with perform ratings, and Citigroup upgraded China-based Internet stocks

Baidu.com

(BIDU) - Get Report

and

Sohu.com

(SOHU) - Get Report

to buy from hold.

As for data, the sole item on the economic docket is the University of Michigan's final consumer-confidence report, due out at 10 a.m. EDT.

Crude oil was stemming some of the previous session's losses, adding 67 cents to $116.73 a barrel, though gold futures shed another 80 cents at $888.60.

Treasury prices were taking a hit. The 10-year note lost 14/32 in price to yield 3.88%, and the 30-year bond lost 15/32 in price, yielding 4.58%.

Overseas markets were mixed. In Asia, Tokyo's Nikkei 225 jumped 2.4% overnight, and the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong declined 0.6%. As for European bourses, the FTSE 100 in London ticked up 0.2%. Germany's Xetra Dax and the Paris Cac climbed about 1% each.

As originally published, this story contained an error. Please see Corrections and Clarifications

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