A screen showing the main index IBEX 35 at Madrid’s Stock Exchange Market, Spain, yesterday. The IBEX 35 rose shortly after the opening of the trading day to reach 8,400 points.
NEW YORK: Stock indexes surrendered gains on world markets yesterday as investors positioned ahead of this week’s meetings of the US, British and eurozone central banks, while the dollar climbed from its recent five-week low.
A pick-up in euro zone consumer and business confidence gave stock markets an initial boost as they await policy clues from the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank and Bank of England, and Friday’s US jobs report for July.
The dollar recovered from losses against the yen after data showed US single-family home prices rose in May, although the pace of gains cooled compared with April. But as the New York session wore on, stocks struggled to maintain gains and indexes turned flat or negative. Verizon and Mosaic led a selloff in the telecoms and materials sectors.
“We’re up against 1,700 on the S&P so it would take a lot to make it move substantially higher,” said Jack de Gan, chief investment officer at Harbor Advisory Corp in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. “The nearest things on the horizon are the Fed meeting and the jobs number so I think we’re going to tread water here until that.”
The Dow Jones industrial average was down 25.46 points, or 0.16 percent, at 15,496.51. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was down 1.14 points, or 0.07 percent, at 1,684.19. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 9.77 points, or 0.27 percent, at 3,608.91.
MSCI’s world index was flat and well off the global day’s session high as was the FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares which closed little changed. Shares of potash producers and related agriculture companies were volatile after Russia’s Uralkali dismantled one of the world’s largest potash partnerships by pulling out of a venture with Belarus Potash Co. Uralkali said the decision might lead to a fall in the global potash price to below $300 per ton in the second half of 2013, from $400 per ton now.
The US dollar continued to edge away from Monday’s five-week low as investors viewed its sharp drop over the last two weeks as a chance to get back in ahead of the Fed meeting and this week’s growth and jobs data. The dollar index was last up 0.3 percent. The dollar was last up 0.1 percent against the yen.
Reuters
