CNNMoney.com
Companies Economy International Corrections Pre-market Trading After-hours Trading Winners/Losers/Actives Bonds Currencies Commodities World Markets Money Magazine Real Estate Taxes Jobs Ask the Expert Money 101 Autos Mutual Funds The Help Desk Loan Center Best Places to Live Ask the Expert Ultimate Guide to Retirement Retirement Calculators Rules of Retirement Best Funds Best Places to Retire Fortune Brainstorm Tech Apple 2.0 Blog Big Tech Blog Sectors and Stocks Tech Talk Resource Guide Small Business Makeovers Questions & Answers Small Business Video 100 Best Places to Launch FSB 100 Fortune Small Business Fortune 500 Brainstorm Tech Investing Management C-Suite Rankings Main Create Portfolio Edit Portfolio Create Alerts Edit Alerts
TRADING
CENTER

Stocks hurt by inflation report

Consumer price increase sends Wall Street lower at opening bell.

Subscribe to Markets
google my aol my msn my yahoo! netvibes
Paste this link into your favorite RSS desktop reader
See all CNNMoney.com RSS FEEDS (close)

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Inflation concerns plagued Wall Street at the start of trading Friday after November consumer prices came in a little above expectations.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 0.6 percent. The Nasdaq composite index slid 0.7 percent. The Standard & Poor's 500 index was 0.4 percent lower.

In corporate news, airline stocks could get a lift Friday from news that JetBlue (JBLU) would receive $300 million from German airline Lufthansa for a 19 percent stake in low-cost carrier. JetBlue will issue additional shares for Lufthansa's stake. But even with that dilution, shares of JetBlue gained 1 percent in after-hours trading Thursday, as did the shares of most U.S. airlines. Lufthansa shares fell 1.3 percent in Frankfurt trading, though.

Drugmaker Merck (MRK, Fortune 500) encountered a setback on Thursday, when a FDA panel shot down its bid for over-the-counter sales of its cholesterol drug Mevacor. Shares of the Dow component lost 0.6 percent in after-hours trading on the news.

Palm (PALM), which has seen weak sales of the Treo smart phones, laid off about 10 percent of its work force this week to cut expenses, according to published reports. The company issued a statement late Thursday confirming some layoffs.

Telecom Qwest (Q, Fortune 500) saw shares jump nearly 7 percent in after-hours trading Thursday after it announced it will begin paying a dividend, the first time it has done so since 2001.

Top executives of Fannie Mae (FNM) will face shareholders on Friday at its annual meeting, which is bound to cast more light on problems in the mortgage finance market. To top of page

Photo Galleries
Obama's Main Street favorites President Obama meets often with small business owners, peppering his speeches with their stories. We checked in with 6 entrepreneurs touted by the President to find out how they handle health care. More
Meet the hardest working Santas This is no part-time gig for these St. Nicks. They've carved out a profession warming kids' hearts during the coldest time of year. More
An eyeblink glance at the economy Last quarter, the economy grew by the largest amount since the summer of 2007, but there are signs that things are still getting worse. More
© 2009 Cable News Network. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Privacy Policy. Advertising Practices.
Copyright © 2009 BigCharts.com Inc. All rights reserved. Please see our Terms of Use.
MarketWatch, the MarketWatch logo, and BigCharts are registered trademarks of MarketWatch, Inc.
Intraday data provided by Interactive Data Real-Time Services and subject to the Terms of Use.
Intraday data is at least 20-minutes delayed. All times are ET.
Historical, current end-of-day data, and splits data provided by Interactive Data Pricing and Reference Data.
Fundamental data provided by Morningstar, Inc..
SEC Filings data provided by Edgar Online Inc..
Earnings data provided by FactSet CallStreet, LLC.