By Tomi Kilgore, MarketWatch
Dec 30, 2005 --
U.S. stocks traded broadly lower on the last session of 2005, putting the
Dow Jones Industrials Average in danger of its first yearly loss since 2002.
With no economic data and very little corporate news to distract
investors, concerns over the inversion of the Treasury yield curve continued
to weigh on sentiment.
The Dow industrials was down 28 points at 10,757, below its 2004 closing
price of 10,783.01.
Within the Dow, 25 of 30 components contributed to losses. United
Technologies and Hewlett-Packard both slumped 0.8% to pace the losers, while
General Motors' 1.8% gain led the winners.
The Nasdaq Composite fell 11 points to 2,207 and the S&P 500 Index shed 4
points to 1,250.
Barring a sharp sell-off, those indexes appeared headed for a third-
straight yearly gain. The Nasdaq closed 2004 at 2,175.44 and the S&P 500
closed at 1,211.92.
Investors remained on edge as long as the yield curve remained inverted --
when longer-term Treasury notes yield less than shorter-term notes -- as those
events have usually preceded economic recessions.
At last look, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note was last down 0.038
percentage points at 4.338%, below the 2-year yield of 4.358%.
The curve inverted on Tuesday for the first time in nearly 6 years. It had
fully inverted in late-1999, just before the Dow reached its bull market peak
in January 2000 and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq topped out in March 2000.
In the broad market, decliners dominated advancers by a 22 to 7 margin on
the NYSE and by a 19 to 6 score on the Nasdaq exchange.
Within commodities, February crude futures declined 42 cents to $59.90 a
barrel in electronic trading, well above its 2004 closing price of $41.24.
Front-month gold futures slipped $1.40 to $516.10 an ounce, vs. a 2004
close of $453.10.
The U.S. dollar was trading mixed, rising 0.5% vs. the euro to $1.1781 but
unchanged against the yen to 117.80.
The dollar was set to close out 2005 with strong yearly gains, after
closing 2004 at $1.3585 vs. the euro and at 102.71 against the yen.
Companies in focus
Among the handful of companies attracting investor attention on Friday,
Citigroup said late Thursday that its Shanghai branch received approval from
China's regulators to be an interbank foreign exchange market maker.
Separately, the financial services giant reportedly is leading a
consortium offering $3 billion for a stake in Chinese bank Guangdong.
Marathon Oil, ConocoPhillips and Amerada Hess said late Thursday that they
reached agreement to resume their former oil and gas production operations in
Libya.
Google Inc. is reportedly being sued by a New York based firm over the
patents it's alleged to use for Voice-over-IP technology in Google Talk. Rates
Technology Inc. is seeking $5 billion in damages, the report in The New York
Post said.
This MarketWatch news update is provided to you courtesy of Thomson
Financial.
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SOURCE Thomson Financial Corporate Group
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