Stocks lower a day after Dow’s blip above 13,000

NEW YORK—A day after Dow 13,000, investors took a break. Stocks closed lower yesterday for the first time in four trading days. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 27.02 points to finish at 12,938.67. The day before, it briefly passed 13,000 for the first time since May 2008. Some investors worried about the details of a bailout deal reached for Greece this week. But analysts said investors were mostly in a holding pattern after seeing the market hit an important psychological mark.

Doug Cote, chief market strategist at ING Investment Management said: “The real US economy continues to march along while the attention is on Europe.” Yesterday, the government will give the latest reading on unemployment claims. They have been declining steadily and fell last week to 348,000, the lowest since March 2008. In the US, the Standard & Poor’s 500 lost 4.55 points to close at 1,357.66. The Nasdaq composite index declined 15.40 points to 2,933.17. Volume was lighter than average, 3.6 billion shares.

All three major averages are well ahead for the year. The Dow is up 5.9 per cent, the S&P eight per cent and the Nasdaq 12.6 per cent. European markets closed lower. In Asia, stocks mostly rose even after a fairly weak Chinese manufacturing survey. The dollar rose to a seven-month high against the Japanese yen. US Treasury prices edged higher, and the yield on the ten-year US Treasury note fell to two per cent from 2.05 per cent.

AP