Stocks Halt Rally, Oil, Copper Retreat; Dollar Strengthens
By Michael P. Regan
July 27 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stocks fell, halting a three- day rally, while oil and copper retreated and the dollar strengthened as a drop in American consumer confidence to a five-month low overshadowed better-than-estimated earnings.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index slipped 0.4 percent to 1,110.8 at 11:12 a.m. in New York and oil lost 2.3 percent to $77.20 a barrel. The Dollar Index, which gauges the currency against six major trading partners, climbed 0.3 percent to 82.302 after three straight declines. Ten-year Treasury yields rose three basis points to 3.02 percent before the U.S. sells $104 billion in notes this week.
The S&P 500 erased an early advance after the Conference Board’s confidence index fell to 50.4 from a revised 54.3 in June, a sign that the lack of jobs may limit the economy’s recovery. Earlier gains in global equities came after companies from DuPont Co. to UBS AG topped analysts’ estimates and banking supervisors eased some proposed capital requirements.
U.S. equities retreated after the Dow Jones Industrial Average yesterday erased this year’s decline. Office Depot Inc. and Urban Outfitters Inc. fell at least 3.4 percent to lead retailers to the steepest declines among 24 industries in the S&P 500.
U.S. Steel Corp. retreated 6.3 percent following an unexpected second-quarter loss after revaluing a $1.4 billion loan made to a European unit.
About 82 percent of companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings since July 12 topped average analyst estimates, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The retreat in U.S. stocks came even after home prices in 20 U.S. cities rose more than forecast in May from a year earlier as a government tax credit temporarily underpinned sales. The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values increased 4.6 percent from May 2009, the biggest year-over-year gain since August 2006, the group said today in New York.
The MSCI World Index of stocks in 24 developed markets slipped 0.1 percent, erasing an earlier rally of as much as 0.7 percent.
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