Stocks struggle out of the gate

U.S. markets steered lower as credit worries, upcoming housing report weigh on investors.

August 24 2007: 9:38 AM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- U.S. stocks retreated at Friday's open as jittery investors braced for a fresh reading on housing starts and shrugged off a surprisingly strong jump in orders for durable goods.

The three major gauges - the Dow Jones industrial average, Nasdaq composite index, and the Standard & Poor's 500 index - all edged lower in the opening minutes of tradnig.

New orders for long-lasting manufactured goods made in the United States grew a higher-than-expected 5.9 percent in July, according to a Commerce Department report early Friday.

Investors shrugged off the numbers, though, as they prepared for more bad news from the housing sector. New data are expected to show a drop in new home sales in July. The 10:00 AM ET report comes after Countrywide Financial (Charts, Fortune 500) CEO Angelo Mozilo warned of a possible recession due to weakness in the housing market.

Among companies in the news: Home Depot (Charts, Fortune 500), KKR Financial (Charts), Ford (Charts, Fortune 500), Burger King (Charts), Monster Worldwide (Charts), H.J. Heinz (Charts, Fortune 500). Top of page
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Market indexes are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer LIBOR Warning: Neither BBA Enterprises Limited, nor the BBA LIBOR Contributor Banks, nor Reuters, can be held liable for any irregularity or inaccuracy of BBA LIBOR. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2012 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Disclaimer The Dow Jones IndexesSM are proprietary to and distributed by Dow Jones & Company, Inc. and have been licensed for use. All content of the Dow Jones IndexesSM © 2012 is proprietary to Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Chicago Mercantile Association. The market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2012. All rights reserved. Most stock quote data provided by BATS.
© 2012 Cable News Network. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Privacy Policy. Ad choices .