A mixed finish for US Market

Good sales figure from General Motors help Dow erase most of its morning losses

 

US market closed mixed today as investors weighed more disappointing news on the housing front against strength in the Technology sector. Five out of ten economic sectors posted losses today, Tuesday, 2 October, 2007. The dollar index made some gains and the strengthening dollar weighed on commodities today.

 

The Dow Jones industrial Average closed lower by higher by 40.2 points at 14,047. But the Nasdaq Composite Index, finished higher by 6.12 points at 2,747.2. S&P 500 finished a slight lower by 0.41 points at 1,546.43.

 

Sixteen of thirty Dow stocks ended in red. Exxon Mobil led the group of Dow decliners with crude prices slipping even today. General Motors was one of the top Dow advancers. The company reported that its September North American auto sales increased by 4% against a street expectation of just 1%. Rivals – Ford and Toyota reported declining sales.

 

Earlier in the day, The National Association of Realtors reported that pending home sales fell a larger than expected 6.5% in August from July and 21.5% from a year earlier. The report suggested that existing home sales will most likely remain weak in the coming months.

 

On the technology front, Google shares once again hit a new all time high. Google's strong performance was partly due to Credit Suisse's announcement that it expects Google to report better than expected earnings.

 

Homebuilders remain unaffected by weak housing report

 

When market opened in the morning, indices lingered in the red. The financial sector was the early-morning's only standout as it continued yesterday's leadership role.

 

The other surprise for the day was that the Homebuilding group was not fazed by the report that came today. Infact, it led this morning with a good gain. Homebuilding outperformed yesterday after Citigroup upgraded several large cap homebuilders.

 

The big story this morning was that TD Bank Financial Group is going to acquire Commerce Bancorp for $8.5 billion.

 

Among Indian ADRs, Rediff.com was the trop gainer today while VSNL was the top loser. Rediff shares gained a little over 4% while VSNL shares dropped by 5.4%. On the finance sector, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank closed up by 0.4% and 1.3% respectively.

 

Volume on the New York Stock Exchange topped 1.2 billion shares, and advancing issues edged decliners 9 to 7. Nearly 1.8 billion shares exchanged hands on the Nasdaq, and advancers outdid decliners 4 to 3.

 

For tomorrow, investors will have the Institute for Supply Management releasing its September services report. Other than that, the Department of Energy will release its weekly inventory report at 10:30 ET.