Roundup: U.S. stocks mixed after Q1 GDP
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E-mail Xinhua, April 27, 2013
Wall Street closed mixed on Friday, dragged down by the lower-than-expected U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the first quarter, but still wrapped up the whole week in positive territory.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average Index edged up 11.75 points, or 0.08 percent, to 14,712.55 points. The Standard & Poor's 500- stock Index lost 2.92 points, or 0.18 percent, to 1,582.24 points. The Nasdaq Composite Index shed 10.73 points, or 0.33 percent, to 3,279.26 points.
For the week, the blue-chip Dow was up 1.13 percent, the broader S&P 500 advanced 1.74 percent, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 2.28 percent.
The real GDP for the world's largest economy increased at an annual rate of 2.5 percent in the first quarter of the year, according to the advance estimate released by the U.S. Commerce Department on Friday. The figure was better than an anemic 0.4- percent growth in the fourth-quarter of last year, but fell short of the consensus expectation of 3.0 percent.
Meanwhile, U.S. consumer sentiment fell to a three-month low of 76.4 in April after climbing to a four-month high of 78.6 in March, as Americans grew more pessimistic about the economic outlook, according to survey results released by Thomson Reuters and the University of Michigan on Friday.
Meanwhile, the CBOE VIX, an index widely viewed as the investor fear gauge, stood nearly unchanged at 13.61.
In corporate news, Chevron rose 1.29 percent to 120.04 U.S. dollars after the oil & gas giant reported earnings that beat market expectations.
Shares of Amazon.com plunged 7.24 percent to 254.81 dollars, one day after the online retailer reported a net income of 82 million dollars in the first quarter of the year, down 37 percent from the same period of last year, and provided a weak guidance.
Starbucks reported higher profit and revenue in its second fiscal quarter compared with the year-ago period, but its earnings guidance was below analysts' forecast. Shares of the world's biggest coffee chain dropped 0.83 percent to 60.00 dollars.
Boeing rose 1.29 percent to 92.85 dollars after the Japanese transport ministry said that it would lift the grounding of the Boeing 787 Dreamliners on Friday night. The passenger jet has been grounded worldwide for more than three months due to battery problems.
The stock market rebounded this week due to generally upbeat corporate earnings reports and rising commodity prices, after suffering the biggest weekly loss for the year in the previous week.
According to Thomson Reuters' data, nearly half of the S&P 500 companies have reported their quarterly earnings so far, with more than two-thirds of them beating analysts' expectations.
In other markets, oil prices fell on Friday, mainly due to the disappointing U.S. GDP figure. Light, sweet crude for June delivery lost 64 cents to settle at 93 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent for June delivery went down 25 cents, or 0.24 percent, to close at 103.16 dollars a barrel.
Gold futures for June delivery on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange on Friday fell 0.57 percent to settle at 1,453.6 dollars per ounce, following the biggest one-day gain since June 2012 on Thursday.
The U.S. dollar retreated against most major currencies on Friday. In late New York trading, the euro rose to 1.3028 dollars from 1.3016 in the previous session, and the British pound advanced to 1.5448 dollars from 1.5443. Endi
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