Hot & Cold Sectors
Tracking the major movements across the best & worst performing industry sector indexes.
Dow 30 Stocks
Top Gainers & Losers
Major Indexes & Stocks to Watch

MORE U.S. INDEXES

» More

TOP HEADLINES

» Markets | Economy | Companies

- Euro Bond Wins Supporters, but Details Remain Vague

FEATURED SLIDESHOWS

» More

Strategies For Business Financing
See the various forms of funding, and what entrepreneurs have used to build successful companies.
7 Electric ‘Super Cars’
Take a peek at some of the most luxurious electric cars available on the market.
The World's Best Places to Live
Cities in some of the world's biggest economies, including the U.S., missed the cut. So, which cities made the list?

MOST POPULAR

News

Blog Posts

Videos

SPECIAL REPORTS

» More

- The Facebook IPO
  Get up-to-the-second breaking news on the Facebook IPO, including in-depth coverage, expert analysis, and Facebook’s stock price.

HOT ON FACEBOOK

Stocks Video Gallery

Best Outcome for Greece is ...

Kit Juckes, global head of foreign exchange strategy at Societe Generale, told CNBC, "The opinion polls are too close to...

Technical Look at the Marke...

Ron William, technical analyst at MIG Bank, joined CNBC for a technical look at the US non farm payroll deceleration, la...

Growth, Not Inflation is To...

Erwin Sanft, Executive Director, Deputy Head of Asian Equities Research, BNP Paribas Securities (Asia) says he expects t...

'Grexit': a Better Option

Eswar Prasad, Senior Professor of Trade Policy, Cornell University says it is not tenable for Greece to remain in the Eu...

Thai Stocks Should Be Able ...

Charamporn Jotikasthira, President, Stock Exchange of Thailand, said Thailand should be able to withstand the shock of '...

Dow Snaps Winning Streak; Citigroup Soars

Published: Tuesday, 28 Jul 2009 | 5:00 PM ET

Text Size

By: Cindy Perman, JeeYeon Park

Stocks ended slightly lower Tuesday, though the Nasdaq eked out a gain. And Citigroup shares soared.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed more than 11 points, or 0.1 percent, snapping a three-session winning streak. The S&P 500 fell 0.3 percent, while the Nasdaq gained 0.4 percent.

Stocks had struggled for much of the day as a drop in consumer confidence and a fresh batch of disappointing earnings put a damper on recovery hopes.

Major U.S. Indexes

.DJIA

.NCOMP

.SPX

The Conference Board reported its gauge of consumer confidence fell to 46.6 in July from 49.3 in June. It was the second straight drop.

The report came as a disappointment as economists had expected the gauge to hold steady around 49, according to a Reuters survey. But Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at MFR Inc., said in a note to clients that it's simply indicative of a "shift from 'end of the world' readings to those that more closely approximate stagnation."

"We do not think that conditions are going to progress in a straight line up from here, and our forecast remains that the road to recovery will be a longer and more difficult journey than most believe at the moment," Shapiro said.

San Francisco Fed president Janet Yellen said the early stages of recovery will be "painfully slow," helping to keep inflation low for now, and that a return to full employment could take several years.

FOR INVESTORS

"We glimpse the first solid signs ... that economic growth may be poised to resume. Indeed, I expect that to happen some time this year," Yellen said at a meeting of Oregon and Idaho bankers.

Today brought another reading on the housing sector: The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price index posted its first month-over-month increase in nearly three years in May, though prices were still down sharply from a year earlier.

U.S. Treasurys ended mixed after the Treasury announced the results of a $42 billion auction of two-year notes in a sale that drew dull demand by some measures and might not bode well for other bond auctions later this week.

This comes after yesterday's $32 billion auction of three-month bills and $31 billion of six-month bills to decent demand as part of the Treasury's weekly routine.

Citigroup [C Loading... () ] shares soared 10 percent as the bank's conversion of preferred to common stock continued to create volatility. Citi said it will be delivering almost 6 billion of new stock on Thursday.

Shares of U.S. health insurers rose broadly led by Aetna [AET Loading... () ], Coventry [CVH Loading... () ], and Cigna [CI Loading... () ] after a bipartisan group of senators closed in on a compromise that omits key Democratic priorities but seeks to hold down costs, as lawmakers struggled to deliver a sweeping health legislation to President Barack Obama.

Shares of American International Group [AIG Loading... () ] jumped 2.7 percent after the troubled insurer divested another asset for nearly $700 million. AIG said it has closed a deal to sell a majority of its life insurance premium-finance business. This comes after the company renamed its AIU property-casualty business Monday to distance the unit from the problems of its parent company.

Boeing [BA Loading... () ] was the biggest percentage gainer on the Dow, followed by Bank of America and General Electric.

Bank of America [BAC Loading... () ] shares rose 1.9 percent after the bank denied a report in the Wall Street Journal that suggested it plans to reduce its 6,100-branch network by about 10 percent, after two decades of expansion. A company spokesman said the company did plan to pare its network but not by that much.

General Electric [GE Loading... () ] climbed 1.6 percent, after the company announced it won't need to raise capital for its troubled GE Capital financing arm. The parent of CNBC.com said that even in "adverse scenarios" there would be no need for outside funds.

The trading floor was buzzing today about a report from the front-page of today's Wall Street Journal that said regulators plan to issue a report next month that trader speculation was to blame for last year's spike in oil prices.

The head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said Tuesday that the group will consider "every option'' to clamp down on excessive speculation in energy markets.

Crude oil fell more than $1, settling at $67.23 a barrel. A recent Reuters poll of analysts forecast oil prices will average $73 a barrel next year, up from an average 2009 price prediction of $58.23 a barrel.

The CBOE Volatility index, widely considered the best gauge of fear in the market, ticked slightly higher, ending around 25, though well off its high near 80 in the fall.

On the earnings front, shares of Viacom [VIA Loading... () ] fell after the owner of MTV Networks and Paramount film studios reported a sharp drop in earnings on poor advertising revenue and a dropoff in its videogame and DVD sales.

US Steel [X Loading... () ] shares also slid after the steel giant reported its second straight drop in earnings.

Office Depot [ODP Loading... () ] shares tumbled 18 percent after the office-supply chain missed analysts' earnings expectations. Leather-handbag maker Coach [COH Loading... () ] hit its target but sales and margins declined. Its shares fell 1.3 percent.

Shares of Amgen [AMGN Loading... () ] rose 2.7 percent after the company late Monday beat earnings expectations, helped by an arthritis drug and a tax benefit. The biotech giant also raised its full-year outlook.

Shares of Mylan [MYL Loading... () ] rebounded 3.8 percent after the generic drug maker said the FDA had found only a minor deviation from standard procedures at its main plant in West Virginia. The stock had dropped 13 percent on Monday following news of a quality-control issue at the plant, the latest in a string of deficiences found at generic drug makers.

More merger news from the tech sector: IBM [IBM Loading... () ] has agreed to buy SPSS [SPSS Loading... () ], which makes analytics software, for $1.2 billion, or $50 a share. SPSS shares soared. IBM slipped.

This came a day after news that Agilent Technologies plans to buy scientific-instrument maker Varian for $1.5 billion, or $52 a share in cash.

Another wirless deal: Sprint Nextel agreed to buy Virgin Mobil USA in a deal that values the prepaid-cellphone maker at $483 million. This followed news that Swedish telecom Ericsson recently agreed to buy Nortel's wireless unit for $1.13 billion.

TECH RINGS UP MERGERS

The big earnings reports to watch this week will be from major energy companies.

BP [BP Loading... () ] started the chain, as Europe’s second largest oil company reported its profit was cut in half by lower oil prices and weaker refining margins. The company also increased its cost-cutting target for 2009 by 50 percent. Shares of Valero Energy [VLO Loading... () ] also dropped as the refining company reported a loss on hefty global fuel inventories and weak demand.

Later in the week, we'll get reports from Chevron [CVX Loading... () ], ExxonMobil [XOM Loading... () ], ConocoPhillips and Royal Dutch Shell.

So far this earnings season, companies beating expectations have outnumbered the misses by a ratio of 5 to 1, the highest since 2004, according to analysts at Birinyi Associates.

Among the biggest beats so far were Goldman Sachs, miner Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold and flash-memory maker SanDisk.