BS: U.S. Stocks Fluctuate as GDP Tops Estimate; Euro Recovers
U.S. stocks drifted between gains and losses after a report showed America’s economy grew more than analysts estimated. The euro pared earlier losses.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was little changed at 1,412.58 at 9:30 a.m. in New York and the Stoxx Europe 600 Index added 0.2 percent, erasing earlier declines. The euro reversed earlier losses against the dollar to trade little changed at $1.2932 and Spanish 10-year bonds erased declines. The yield on 10-year Treasury notes dropped four basis points to 1.79 percent.
U.S. gross domestic product rose at a 2 percent annual rate, Commerce Department figures showed. The median forecast of 86 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for a 1.8 percent gain. Spain’s unemployment, the second highest in the European Union after Greece, rose to 25.02 percent from 24.6 percent in the previous quarter, the National Statistics Institute said.
“You’re getting a mix of data that don’t have a clear direction,” said Stephen Wood, the New York-based chief market strategist for North America for Russell Investments, which oversees $152 billion. “It’s important for investors’ psychology to see GDP data beating estimates. Yet the earnings season has been a very challenging one.”
The S&P 500 was headed for a weekly decline. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan final index of consumer sentiment is also due today. The gauge jumped to 83 in October, the highest level since September 2007, according to a Bloomberg survey.
Apple Inc. (AAPL), the world’s largest company by market value, forecast profit that was less than analysts predicted after last quarter’s profit rose to $8.67 a share, shy of the $8.75 a share projected by analysts. Expedia Inc. (EXPE) climbed 17 percent after the second-biggest online travel agency by market value reported third-quarter earnings that topped analysts’ estimates.
First Loss
Amazon.com Inc., the biggest online retailer, had its first quarterly net loss since 2003 and reporting revenue that missed analysts’ estimates.
In Europe, Ericsson AB (ERICB) fell 4.4 percent after the world’s largest maker of mobile-phone networks posted a 43 percent decline in third-quarter profit. Belgacom SA jumped 8.5 percent, the biggest gain since the company went public in 2004, as Belgium’s largest phone company raised its forecasts. Anglo American Plc rose 3.8 percent as Chief Executive Officer Cynthia Carroll stepped down.
Spain’s 10-year bond yield rose less than one basis point to 5.61 percent after increasing seven points earlier. It has climbed 24 basis points this week, the most since August. The rate on similar maturity Italian notes rose four basis points to 4.89 percent as the government sold 3 billion euros ($3.9 billion) of zero-coupon debt due in 2014, meeting its maximum target.
The yield on Germany’s 10-year bonds fell five basis points to 1.53 percent.
The MSCI Emerging Markets Index (MXEF) slid 0.8 percent. South Korea’s Kospi lost 1.7 percent as a report showed the economy grew at the slowest pace in three years in the third quarter. Commodity producers led Russia’s Micex Index 0.7 percent lower, Brazil’s Bovespa lost 0.4 percent and the Shanghai Composite Index sank 1.7 percent.
To contact the reporters on this story: Stephen Kirkland in London at skirkland@bloomberg.net; Rita Nazareth in New York at rnazareth@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Lynn Thomasson at lthomasson@bloomberg.net
