US market closes mixed

Financial sector offsets good momentum in Technology stocks

After a full day of choppy trading, US market closed mixed today. Technology sector, after remaining in the green for most part of the day, gave up most of its gain at the day’s close. Still, Nasdaq was the only index which managed to end in the green today.

The Dow Jones industrial Average was down nearly 51 points, to 13,239. The Nasdaq Composite Index, finished up 2 points at 2,565. S&P 500 was down 6 points to 1,458.

Twenty-four out of thirty Dow stocks closed in the red today. Wal-Mart led the team of Dow laggards. Home-Depot was the main Dow winner today. Wal-Mart shares dropped more than 2% today after Merrill Lynch downgraded the stock to sell.

Financial stocks came under tremendous pressure after Lehman Brothers lowered their forecasts for the second half of this year and 2008 for Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley.

Among expected economic data, the Commerce Department said second-quarter gross domestic product rose 4% - its fastest pace in more than a year but the gain was slightly lower than many anticipated. Also, the Labor Department said U.S. jobless claims rose last week to the highest level since April.

What will Ben Bernanke speak tomorrow?

Technology, was the day's only sector in positive territory. That was mainly because tech is thought by many to be the most immune among the 10 economic sectors to the lingering credit concerns. Dell was among the sector's best performers ahead of its earnings report after the bell.

Among Indian ADRs, other than VSNL and Patni Computers, all the stocks ended in red. VSNL and Patni shares rose by 4.5% each. HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank registered loss of 1.8% and 2.7% respectively.

Crude-oil futures closed slightly lower today as traders locked in some of the previous session's gains. But a slowdown in imports from Mexico following Hurricane Dean and seasonally thin gasoline supplies checked losses. October crude futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange closed with a 15 cent loss at $73.36 a barrel.

More than 1.2 billion shares exchanged hands on the New York Stock Exchange, with decliners outpacing gainers by 19 to 13. On the Nasdaq, 1.8 billion shares were traded, with decliners outpacing gainers 16 to 12.

For tomorrow, traders’ attention will be focused on Ben Bernanke's speech at an economic symposium. Several economic reports are also scheduled to be released tomorrow. The Personal Income & Outlay survey and the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment survey are the major ones. They should offer insight into consumer health and spending as well as household financial conditions and attitudes toward the economy.