Wall Street Slips

Stocks on Wall Street traded lower on Monday after data from China showed growth to be slower than anticipated, knocking oil and gold prices lower.

The Standard Poor’s 500-stock index dipped 0.8 percent in morning trading, while the Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.7 percent — more than 100 points — and the Nasdaq composite index lost 0.9 percent.

China’s economic recovery unexpectedly slowed in the first quarter, with the annual rate of growth in the world’s second-largest economy easing back to 7.7 percent from the 7.9 percent of the previous quarter, below economists’ forecast for an 8 percent expansion, a government report said.

Adding to concerns about a slowing global economy, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s index of general business conditions fell to 3.05 points, from 9.24 in March, a bigger drop e than economists had forecast, as new orders tumbled.

Wall Street stocks dipped on Friday, partly because of weak retail sales and consumer sentiment data, but still managed to notch their second-best weekly performance of the year with a 2.3 percent gain.

“None of the economic data has been very good for the last couple of weeks,” said Paul Mendelsohn, chief investment strategist at Windham Financial Services in Charlotte, Vt. “I wouldn’t say this is over yet, but there are enough indicators out there to really indicate that investors should approach this market with a degree of caution which doesn’t seem to exist right now.”

European stocks fell modestly, with the Euro Stoxx 50 index of euro zone blue chips down 0.3 percent and the FTSE 100 in London down 0.8 percent in afternoon trading.

Among earnings reports, Citigroup shares advanced 2.5 percent after reporting a higher-than-expected 31 percent rise in first-quarter profit.

In deal news, Dish Network, the No. 2 satellite television provider in the United States, offered to buy Sprint Nextel for $25.5 billion in cash and stock, a move that could thwart the proposed acquisition of Sprint by Japan’s SoftBan. Sprint shares jumped 16 percent.

The Chinese data weighed heavily on commodities, with crude oil down 1.8 percent in New York trading to $89.69 as it recovered slightly off its lowest level of the year. Gold sank further into bear market territory. Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold lost 6.4 percent and U.S.-listed shares of Randgold Resources stumbled 7.7 percent.

Earnings season heats up this week, with 74 companies in the S.P. 500 scheduled to report, including American Express, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Google.

The genetic testing equipment maker Life Technologies has agreed to a $13.6 billion cash buyout by Thermo Fisher Scientific, in one of the year’s biggest corporate takeovers. Life Technologies shares climbed 7.8 percent.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/16/business/daily-stock-market-activity.html?partner=rss&emc=rss