Wall Street: Mon. mid-session

Graeme Beaton13 April 2012

THE old saying 'Sell in May and go away' resonated on Wall Street as markets moved within tight bands ahead of the slowest trading season of the year.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which rose 1% last week, gave back 18.48 points or 0.18% to 9,988.15 by mid-session. The Nasdaq Index, starting the day down 17% on the year, was up 2.87 points or 0.18% to 1,615.90.

Volume was low with investors unwilling to make major bets ahead of a Federal Reserve Board meeting tomorrow (Tuesay.) British markets were closed for a bank holiday.

Board chairman Alan Greenspan and his colleagues are expected to hold official interest rates at 1.75%, their lowest level in 40 years, on the rationale that the US economic recovery is tepid and the risk remains that it could slip back into recession. A survey of US economists showed that most think that the Fed will wait at least until its August meeting before moving interest rates higher.

One potential inflationary force played into market action. Oil prices slipped 3% after Iraq said it would end a month-long ban on oil exports, a step taken in protest at Israeli action against the Palestinians. ExxonMobil dropped 70 cents or 1.7% to $39.89. BP's US shares lost 73 cents or 1.4% to $51.12. Airlines were generally stronger on falling fuel prices, although BA's US shares came off 35 cents or 1% to $33.85.

Telecom shares hammered in recent sessions held their ground for the most part. WorldCom recovered two cents or 1.2% to $1.81. Vodafone's American shares rose 11 cents or 0.8% to $14.02.

AOL Time Warner slumped to a new low, falling 11 cents or 0.6% to $17.94. News Corp. fell 56 cents or 2.1% to $25.92 on reports it might have to write off several billion dollars to cover its losses in part-owned Gemstar-TV Guide. Gemstar shares were off 14 cents or 1.6% to $8.58, down from $49.95 in the past year.

Microsoft arch rival Oracle dipped 18 cents or 2.1% to $8.25 after analysts said the company's software appeared to be losing ground to IBM and Microsoft products. Cisco Systems added 36 cents or 2.7% to $13.50. Cisco is due to announce its quarterly results this week.

Among Dow components, Boeing dipped 51 cents or 1% to $44.12, Walt Disney retreated 24 cents or 1% to $23.26 and Philip Morris was marked up 71 cents or 1.3% to $56.39.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in