Dow tries for recordBlue-chip barometer flirts with new all-time high, while Nasdaq slips; oil prices rise; investors gear up for November jobs report.NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The Dow Jones industrial average continued to gun for a new record high Thursday morning, but the broader market struggled as investors eyed a jump in oil prices and geared up for Friday's big monthly jobs report. The Dow (up 21.79 to 12,331.04, Charts) added 0.2 percent more than an hour into the session. Earlier, the blue-chip average had topped its record closing high from November and flirted with a new record trading high before backing off.
The broader S&P 500 (up 1.15 to 1,414.05, Charts) index was barely changed, after briefly topping a six-year high hit earlier in the week. The tech-fueled Nasdaq (down 4.73 to 2,441.13, Charts) composite lost 0.2 percent, giving back early morning gains. Stocks slipped Wednesday amid Yahoo!'s management shakeup and concerns ahead of the November jobs report, due Friday. Some of those concerns remained Thursday. A private employment services firm released a report Wednesday that suggested stronger-than-expected payroll growth in November, and Thursday's weekly survey showed a bigger-than-expected drop in new claims for unemployment. All of which suggests Friday's report could show that employers added more than the 105,000 jobs to their payrolls than economists surveyed by Briefing.com are currently expecting, on average. A number that is just slightly better than estimates might reassure investors concerned about the economic slowdown. However, a payrolls number substantially above forecasts could raise worries about wage inflation, something the Federal Reserve Board has said it is monitoring. In corporate news, Home Depot (down $0.52 to $39.40, Charts) has said that a review showed it had unrecorded expenses of about $200 million connected to stock options, but that fixing the problem would have little effect on its finances. Home Depot, a Dow stock, is one of many companies facing probes into the potential manipulation of stock option grants. General Motors (down $0.27 to $29.10, Charts) said late Wednesday that its market share has bottomed out and that it sees crossover vehicles as the means of driving market share gains in the future. Among technology decliners, Oracle (down $0.40 to $17.48, Charts) slipped for a second session after Lehman Bros. said Wednesday that investors should sell the stock ahead of the company's quarterly earnings report. Cree (down $2.59 to $18.52, Charts) slumped 13 percent on the Nasdaq after the chipmaker warned that fiscal second-quarter revenue would miss estimates due to weaker-than-expected orders for its chips used in mobile phones. Among other movers, Vanda Pharmaceuticals (up $9.93 to $25.43, Charts) jumped 73 percent in unusually active Nasdaq trade after its experimental schizophrenia drug was effective in a late-stage trial. Market breadth was negative. On the New York Stock Exchange, decliners beat advancers 8 to 7 on volume of 340 million shares. On the Nasdaq, losers topped decliners eight to five on volume of 545 million shares. U.S. light crude oil prices for January delivery fell 49 cents to $61.70 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. COMEX gold fell $3.20 to $632.70 an ounce. Treasury prices inched higher, lowering the yield on the benchmark 10-year note to 4.47 percent from 4.48 percent late Wednesday. Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions. In currency trading, the dollar fell versus the yen. The greenback was little changed versus the euro after the European Central Bank boosted its benchmark lending rate by a quarter-percentage point as expected, but lowered its 2007 forecast on inflation, due to lower oil prices. |
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