Friday, February 24, 2012
U.S. stocks finished mixed Friday on very light trading. While both the S&P 500 and NASDAQ gained 0.2% the Dow Jones Industrial Average was flat and the broader Russell 2000 was down 0.3%. With a lack of news, investors keyed on technical measures, the most important being the 2011 highs on the S&P 500 near 1370, which the market has been testing this week.
- The Commerce Department said that new-home sales fell 0.9 percent last month to aseasonally adjusted annual rate of 321,000 homes. New homes are selling well below the 700,000-per-year rate that economists equate with healthy markets. The median sales price of a new home rose 0.3 percent in January to $217,100.
- The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan final index of consumer sentiment for February rose to 75.3. Economists projected a reading of 73.
Crude oil advanced another 1.8% to $109.77 (a 9 month high), while gold fell 0.55% to $1776.40 and silver 0.6% to $35.34.
European shares were mixed with Britain down 0.05%, Germany up 0.8%, and France gaining 0.6%.
Japan's Nikkei 225 climbed 0.5% while China's Shanghai Composite Index climbed 1.2%. Chinese shares were boosted by speculation local governments would relax restrictions on the property market.