Stocks in U.S. Hold Near Flat Line
Updated from 9:58 a.m. EDT
Wall Street was little changed Friday morning as stocks searched for direction in the final session of the week.
The
Dow Jones Industrial Average
was rising 12 points to 7412, and the
S&P 500
was down 1 point at 783. The
Nasdaq
was tacking on 5 points to 1488.
On Thursday, the major indices closed lower, but stocks have been rallying for the most part in the past week and a half. Last time out, the Dow fell 85.78 points, or 1.2%, to 7400.80, while the S&P 500 gave up 10.31 points, or 1.3%, to 784.04. The Nasdaq lost 7.74 points, or 0.5%, to 1483.48.
Among stocks,
(C) - Get Report
was up 0.8% to $2.62 following word that Chief Financial Officer Gary Crittenden has been appointed chairman of Citi Holdings, and Edward Kelly, the head of global banking, will take over the bank's leading finance position.
(GE) - Get Report
was down 3% at $9.83 after having its earnings estimates cut at Citi and Credit Suisse.
Shares of
Sony
(SNE) - Get Report
and
Ericsson
(ERIC) - Get Report
were both weaker after
, their electronics joint venture, said it would post a first-quarter pretax loss amid falling sales. Sony was down 1%, and Ericsson was off 8%.
(XRX) - Get Report
was another early sluggish name, falling 8% to $4.91 in the wake of its reduced earnings forecast. The company now expects a first-quarter profit of 3 cents to 5 cents a share, well below the earlier outlook of 16 cents to 20 cents.
Commodities were mixed overall, but gold and crude oil were retreating. Oil was down 97 cents at $50.64 a barrel at the New York Mercantile Exchange, and gold was losing $8.30 at $950.50 an ounce.
The dollar, battered since the
announced plans Wednesday afternoon to inject new capital into the economy, was strengthening against the euro, the pound and the yen.
As for the Treasury market, the 10-year note was up 8/32 in price, yielding 2.57%, and the 30-year bond was adding 7/32 to yield 3.62%.
Overseas, London's FTSE 100 was up 0.8% at 3846, and Frankfurt's Dax and the Paris Cac were higher by 0.5% each. Tokyo's Nikkei was closed for a holiday, but the Hong Kong Hang Seng fell 2.3% to 12,884.
