US stocks end lower for fourth straight day

Maneuvering over fiscal cliff talks take indices lower U.S. stocks ended moderately lower on Thursday, 27 December 2012. Stocks extended losses into a fourth session as Wall Street registered its distress over the budget impasse in Washington. Equities saw gains at the outset of the session, but were met with a quick turn in sentiment after Senate Majority Leader Reid spoke from the Senate floor. During his remarks, Senator Reid said that all signs suggest the country will go over the fiscal cliff. In addition, the senator said the House of Representatives is being run as a "dictatorship" by Speaker Boehner. The comments caused the major averages to fall to their respective lows. For the day, the Dow ended lower by 18.28 points (0.14%) at 13,096.31. Nasdaq ended lower by 4.25 points (0.14%) at 2,985.91. S&P 500 ended lower by 1.74 points (0.12%) at 1,418.09. Among the ten economic sectors, utilities were hardest hit and consumer companies was the best performing of its 10 industry sectors. Investors and traders continue to worry about the U.S. fiscal cliff negotiations that have stalled and now with only a few days left for U.S. lawmakers to reach a deal. President Obama did come back from his Hawaii vacation early. However, there was no progress on the matter as of Thursday afternoon. U.S. lawmakers have until 3 January 2013 to come to agreement before the government falls off the fiscal cliff. Cisco Systems and Bank of America led the way among decliners that included all of the benchmark's 30 components. Major financials were among the top performers early, but Speaker Reid's comments sent banks to fresh lows. Bank of America was up over 1.0% in early trade, but ended lower by 0.6%. Elsewhere, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase were both down near 1%. Consumer stocks were among the biggest laggards yesterday after MasterCard SpendingPulse reported disappointing growth in holiday sales. Today, the discretionary space trades in-line with the broader market. Several apparel producers and multi-line retailers witnessed an extension of yesterday's weakness. On the upside, footwear designer Deckers Outdoor surged 8.1% despite the lack of news to account for the move. In overnight news, the Japanese stock market rallied to a nearly two-year high on hopes for more monetary policy stimulus coming from the Bank of Japan. European stock markets were firmer, helped in part by a successful auction of Italian bonds and better Italian manufacturing data. The dollar index, which weighs the strength of the dollar against a basket of six other currencies, rose by 0.1% on Thursday after dropping earlier during the day. Today's economic news at Wall Street was mixed. The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 350,000, which was better than the 375,000 that had been expected. The tally was below the revised prior week count of 362,000. As for continuing claims, they fell to 3.206 million from 3.238 million. The December consumer confidence came in at 65.1, while economists expected a reading of 70.0. This follows the prior month's revised reading of 71.5. Separately, new home sales in November hit an annualized rate of 377,000, which was up from October's revised rate of 361,000, and worse than the rate of 379,000 that had been broadly expected. Latest data showed that profits earned by China's industrial companies jumped 22.8% in November from a year earlier, accelerating from October's 20.5%. Bullion metals finished higher on Thursday, 27 December 2012. Slight decline in the U.S. dollar earlier in the day amid thin holiday dealings on Thursday and some short covering and bargain hunting, and even some fresh safe-haven demand, lifted the yellow metal. Gold for February delivery rose $3 (0.2%) to settle at $1,663.7 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange on Thursday. On Thursday, March silver rose $0.20, or 0.7% to settle at $30.24 an ounce. Crude oil prices ended little lower on Thursday, 27 December 2012 at Nymex. Uncertainty over talks regarding fiscal cliff solution and movement of dollar affected the crude prices. On Thursday, light and sweet crude oil futures for light sweet crude for February delivery closed lower by $0.11 (0.1%) at $90.87/barrel. Decliners edged ahead of advancers on the New York Stock Exchange, where nearly 567 million shares traded. Composite volume topped 2.8 billion. Indian ADRs ended mixed on Thursday. In the Banking space, ICICI Bank was down 1.2% and HDFC Bank rose 0.6%. In the IT space, Infosys was down 1% and Wipro was up 0.5%. In the Telecom space, MTNL lost 0.03% and Tata Communication was up 1.5%. In the other space, Sterlite was down 0.23%, Tata Motors was up 0.8%. Dr Reddys was down 0.7%. For tomorrow, no economic or earning data is expected for the day.