Economy
CLOSING BELL: June 18: DJIA: 12,741.82 | DOWN 25.35 | -.20%
OIL: $83.27, DOWN .76, -.90%
GOLD: $1,627.00, DOWN 1.10, -.07%
GASOLINE (US Avg): $3.505, -.004
Tech Outpaces A Market Bedeviled By Europe
Ryan Vlastellca, Reuters - The Nasdaq advanced on Monday, propelled by a rally in Apple and other big-cap tech stocks, but fears Europe’s debt crisis is in danger of worsening limited broader gains.
Positive analyst comments lifted both eBay (EBAY.O), up 4.5 percent to $42.49, and Groupon Inc (GRPN.O), up 10.8 percent at $11.15. Apple Inc (AAPL.O) accounted for about half the Nasdaq’s rise, climbing 2 percent to $585.78.
The S&P eked out a slight gain as it bumped up against its 50-day moving average around 1,347 while the Dow ended lower.
A weekend election victory by pro-bailout parties in Greece removed one headwind facing the euro zone. But rising bond yields in Spain and Italy reinforced views that Europe has yet to control its debt crisis.
The election “wasn’t a game changer and does little to alleviate the larger issues that remain in Europe,” said Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott in Philadelphia.
A senior official with Greece’s New Democracy party, the conservatives who won Sunday’s election and who back Athens’ international bailout plan, told Reuters that Greece would form a government on Tuesday.
But there were conflicting signals about the way forward. The leader of New Democracy, Antonis Samaras, pledged his commitment to Greece’s international bailout package, but also said there would have to be “some necessary amendments.”
Meanwhile, Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, said any lo0sening of agreed reform pledges would be unacceptable.
The election results also offered little reprieve from contagion concerns as yields on both Italian and Spanish bonds rose, with Spain’s 10-year yield climbing above the 7 percent mark at which other highly indebted euro-zone nations were forced to seek bailouts. <GVD/EUR>
European authorities have already agreed to a 100-billion-euro ($125 billion) rescue for Spain’s troubled banks.
Market participants were also reluctant to take bets ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s two-day policy meeting, with investors keen to see if the Fed will announce new stimulative measures in its policy statement at the meeting’s close on Wednesday afternoon.
