freeport mcmoran copper and gold

Raw materials companies helped depress the major indexes after prices for commodities like copper and oil plunged.

Traders focused on remarks by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany suggesting that the second bailout package for Greece might have to be renegotiated. Several European leaders want banks to take bigger losses on Greek bonds, but France and the European Central Bank oppose the idea.

Germany’s Parliament is set to vote Thursday on a measure that would give a European rescue fund more powers to fight the region’s debt crisis. Finland’s Parliament approved the proposal Wednesday, lifting some uncertainty over the crisis, which has dogged financial markets since late July.

“This is a market that has been fluctuating and is thoroughly susceptible to any news, any rumors, any innuendos” about Europe, said Quincy Krosby, a market strategist at Prudential Financial.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 179.79 points, or 1.6 percent, to close at 11,010.90. It had gained 413 points over the last two days. The Standard Poor’s 500-stock index fell 24.32, or 2.1 percent, to 1,151.06. The Nasdaq composite index fell 55.25, or 2.2 percent, to 2,491.58.

Declines were broad. Only 17 of the 500 stocks in the S. P. 500 rose.

Raw materials stocks were down 4.5 percent. Investors fear that Europe’s problems could cause another global recession, weakening demand for basic materials like copper. The price of copper plunged 5.6 percent; crude oil fell 3.8 percent, to $81.21 a barrel..

The mining company Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold declined 7.2 percent, and Cliffs Natural Resources fell 8.4 percent. The coal producer Alpha Natural Resources was down 11 percent, the most of any company in the S. P.

Orders for durable goods slipped 0.1 percent last month. The modest decline was largely a result of an 8.5 percent drop in orders for automobiles and automobile parts.

Economists looked past the total figure and focused on a 1.1 percent increase in a crucial category that measures business investment plans. That is core capital goods that are not used for defense or transportation.

Shipments of those goods rose 2.8 percent, the fourth consecutive gain in the category. The government looks closely at shipment figures when calculating economic growth.

Economists said the fact that businesses kept expanding and modernizing during the turbulent month suggested many were confident about the future.

“Business capital spending is rising,” said Christopher Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi in New York. “There is no recession.”

The Dow jumped 126 points minutes after the opening bell on that report. But those gains were gone within an hour, and the selling intensified in the last half-hour of trading.

The decline followed three days of gains. Stocks rose earlier this week on hopes that Europe was moving closer to resolving its debt problems. The Dow soared 272 points on Monday, its fourth-largest increase this year, and 147 points more on Tuesday.

“The market got ahead of itself,” said Joseph Saluzzi, co-head of stock trading at Themis Trading. Investors “assumed some kind of deal would be structured, and that was so far away from happening.”

Technology companies fared better than the overall market. The online retailer Amazon.com shot up 2.5 percent after it unveiled the Kindle Fire, a tablet device that will cost $199 and will compete with Apple’s hugely successful iPad.

Jabil Circuit, an electronics parts maker, rose 8.4 percent. The company reported strong earnings and a fourth-quarter earnings forecast that was better than analysts had expected.

The benchmark 10-year Treasury note fell 2/32 to 101 8/32, pushing its yield to 1.99 percent, down from 1.98 percent on Tuesday.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=c74b28f8b95684021059fdabf8235390

Stocks and Bonds: Shares Eke Out Increase After 6 Weeks of Losses

Transatlantic Holdings, the reinsurer formerly owned by the American International Group, surged 9.5 percent after agreeing to merge with Allied World Assurance Company Holdings of Switzerland. Timberland, the footwear maker, rallied 44 percent as the VF Corporation announced plans to buy it for $1.8 billion. Halliburton and Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold slumped at least 1.2 percent amid falling commodity prices.

The Standard Poor’s 500-stock index rose 0.85 of a point, or 0.07 percent, to 1,271.83. The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 1.06 points, or 0.01 percent, to 11,952.97 after sliding for six straight weeks, the longest stretch since 2002. The Nasdaq composite index average fell 4.04 points, or 0.15 percent, to 2,639.69.

“Corporate managers are more positive on their prospects than investors, which we see expressed in the deals today,” said Timothy A. Hoyle, director of research at Haverford Trust in Radnor, Pa. “People came in this morning and saw these good deals,” Mr. Hoyle said.

More than $1 trillion has been erased from United States markets since the S. P. 500-stock index peaked on April 29, leaving the measure trading at about 12.8 times its companies’ estimated earnings for 2011. That is the cheapest valuation since last August.

The S. P. 500 fell 6.8 percent from the end of April through June 10 as sales of used homes unexpectedly declined, the unemployment rate rose and concern about the European debt crisis increased.

Transatlantic rallied 9.5 percent, to $48.19 Monday after agreeing to merge with Allied World Assurance in a $3.2 billion deal that creates a reinsurer with operations in 18 countries.

Timberland climbed 44 percent, to $43.20, after agreeing to be bought for $43 a share.

Graham Packaging jumped 17 percent, to $25.63. Graham, a maker of plastic containers controlled by the Blackstone Group, said it had received an unsolicited proposal from an unidentified bidder to acquire all of its shares for $25 a share in cash. The company agreed in April to be bought by Silgan Holdings for about $4.1 billion including debt.

Ness Technologies, a computer services provider based in Israel, rose 14 percent, to $7.60, after agreeing to be acquired by Citi Venture Capital International for $307 million in cash.

Energy shares fell 1.4 percent, the most among 10 S. P. 500 industry groups. Materials makers lost 0.6 percent, the second most in the benchmark index.

Crude oil for July delivery fell 2 percent, to $97.30 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after declining to $96.13, the lowest intraday level since May 20. The Thomson Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index of commodities slipped 1 percent.

Stocks retreated before rebounding and oil extended losses as Standard Poor’s cut Greece’s credit rating to the world’s lowest debt grade.

Greece’s credit rating was cut by three levels to CCC, and S. P. said on Monday that Greece was “increasingly likely to restructure its debt.” That probably would “result in one or more defaults under our criteria,” S. P. said. Moody’s Investors Service decided this month to grade Greece only one level higher.

The European Central Bank president, Jean-Claude Trichet, and the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, remained at odds over investors’ role in the second Greek rescue in 14 months. The dispute turns on how politicians keep a promise to push creditors to pay some of the cost, a step that Mr. Trichet said on June 9 could be an “enormous mistake.”

Finance ministers have called a meeting for Tuesday as they try to avoid what Olli Rehn, the European economic and monetary affairs commissioner, called a “Lehman Brothers catastrophe on European soil.”

Interest rates were steady. The Treasury’s benchmark 10-year note fell 3/32, to 101 7/32, and the yield rose to 2.98 percent, from 2.97 percent last Friday.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=963fe598d63a447f8e9d9bd3f025b1dc

Worry on Euro Debt Ends 3 Days of Gains

Stocks and Bonds: Shares Eke Out Increase After 6 Weeks of Losses

Recent News

Partners