Stocks Lift After Bumpy Start
Updated from 9:44 a.m. EDT
Stocks in the U.S. saw some mixed action early Monday, but were lately holding on to their gains, as traders weighed cooling oil futures against a negative-leaning pile of corporate earnings reports.
The
Dow Jones Industrial Average
started stronger before dipping nearly to the flat line, but recently the index was better by 45 points at 12,791. The
S&P 500
went negative midmorning before rising again, by 3 points at 1391, and the
Nasdaq Composite
was spiking 16 points at 2461.
The advance came as crude retreated from some of last week's massive gains, losing 96 cents at $125 a barrel in recent trading.
Even though the nationwide average for gas prices at the pump touched an all-time high of $3.718, according to AAA, retailers were taking benefit from reprieve in crude. Retailers
Wal-Mart
(WMT) - Get Report
and
Home Depot
(HD) - Get Report
were among the best performing Dow components, and both the Dow Jones U.S. Retail Index and the S&P Retail Index ramped up 0.8% and 0.6%, respectively.
At the same time, gold futures lost $1.80 to $884 an ounce. The U.S. dollar lost grip on some of its early gains against the euro, and was recently dipping by 0.1% to $1.5490. Against the yen, however, the greenback remained higher by 0.5%.
MBIA
(MBI) - Get Report
had a brief stumble out of the gate, but was recently leaping 10.2%, despite losing $2.41 billion in the first quarter. The loss came as the beleaguered bond insurer took a $3.6 billion hit in unrealized losses on insured derivatives.
Mortgage insurer
PMI
(PMI)
also swung to a quarterly loss, and rival
Radian
(RDN) - Get Report
did the same when excluding unrealized gains on derivatives and hybrid securities. Keeping in those gains, the company said its profit came to $195.6 million. Shares were tacking on 2.5% and 7.9%, respectively.
Also swinging to a first-quarter loss was mortgage lender
IndyMac
(IMB)
. The firm, which
lost $184.2 million
, or $2.27 a share, warned that it won't achieve a profit until the plunge in housing prices eases up. Shares were plunging 8.8%.
HSBC
(HBC)
was up 2.9%, however, after saying first-quarter earnings climbed from last year, thanks to its success in emerging markets such as Asia. That came even as the Britain-based bank wrote down $2.6 billion in assets and doubled its loan-impairment charges.
Away from financials,
Sprint Nextel
(S) - Get Report
recovered from an initial fall despite sharply widening its first-quarter loss to $505 million, or 18 cents a share, as it continued to lose subscribers. Stripping out one-time expenses, Sprint made 4 cents a share, or 2 cents better than expected, even as
revenue fell short
.
XM Satellite Radio
(XMSR)
also
lost more money
in its latest quarter, missing the consensus target, but shares ticked up 1.3%. XM's merger partner
Sirius
(SIRI) - Get Report
, which is expected to post its results following the close of trading, was ahead by 1.8%.
Meanwhile, confirmation came that
Cablevision
(CVC)
has agreed to pay Tribune Co. $650 million for the Long Island newspaper Newsday. Over the weekend, Rupert Murdoch's
News Corp.
(NWS) - Get Report
retracted its own $580 million offer
for the paper. Cablevision slipped 1.8%, and News Corp. fell back 0.8%.
Elsewhere, after Friday's market close
FedEx
(FDX) - Get Report
said harsh economic conditions and climbing fuel prices have squeezed its bottom line, and the package-delivery outfit
slashed its current-quarter earnings forecast
. Shares were down 1.2%.
Treasury prices were hiking up. The 10-year note lifted by 11/32 in price to yield 3.73%, and the 30-year bond added 22/32 in price, yielding 4.48%.
Markets abroad were mixed. In Asia, Tokyo's Nikkei 225 added 0.6% overnight. Hong Kong was closed. Among European exchanges, the FTSE 100 in London and the Paris Cac reversed early gains to step back roughly 0.1% apiece. Germany's Xetra Dax was up 0.2%.