Wall Street indecision was the order of the day

By KATE GIBSON, MarketWatch

August 17, 2010 at 2:03AM

NEW YORK - U.S. stock investors avoided any big moves ahead of the week's major U.S. economic reports Monday, though negative sentiment about global growth was enough to push the Dow Jones industrial average to its fifth day of losses.

Indecision about the global economy marked the day's trading, with stocks swinging between modest gains and losses for much of the low-volume session.

By the close, the Dow average had lost 1.1 points, or 0.01 percent, to 10,302.01. Over the past five days, it's lost nearly 400 points. The other benchmark indexes quit their losing streak, however, to end with modest gains.

"Investors are continuing to react to the onslaught of marginally negative news regarding the pace of the global economic recovery," said Fred Dickson, chief investment strategist at Davidson Cos.

Wall Street staged an early retreat after a regional manufacturing report came in short of estimates and Japan joined the list of countries with slowing economic growth.

Yet more important economic reports are still to come, Dickson said. Tuesday, the government is slated to release July statistics on producer prices, housing starts and industrial production; data on weekly jobless claims are in store for Thursday.

Global conglomerates led decliners on the Dow, with shares of 3M Co. and Boeing Co. off 0.7 percent, and United Technologies Corp. down 0.5 percent.

Cisco Systems Inc., the world's biggest maker of networking equipment, rose 2.6 percent, the top gainer among the blue chips.

The S&P 500 index added 0.1 point, or 0.01 percent, to 1,079.38, led by gains in natural resource and tech stocks.

The Nasdaq composite index gained 8.4 points, or 0.4 percent, to 2,181.87.

Advancers edged past decliners on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume totaled 789 million.

Stocks tumbled at the start, but trimmed their losses after the National Association of Home Builders reported its confidence index in August fell to 13, its lowest level since March 2009.

And Japan said its economy grew only 0.1 percent in the second quarter.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

about the writer

about the writer

KATE GIBSON, MarketWatch