US Market closes mixed with crude prices slipping

Technology sector remains the sole gainer for the day with support from Apple, Google and RIMM

It was a good day for Technology stocks today, 8 October, 2007 with Google crossing the $600 mark for the first time and closing at a record high. Weakness in crude oil and gold prices with the dollar strengthening partly against euro led US stocks take a hint and slip lower. Market closed mixed with only Nasdaq gaining. Nine out of ten economic sectors posted losses today. Technology remained the sole winner.

The Dow Jones industrial Average closed lower by 22.28 points at 14,043.73. The Nasdaq Composite Index, finished higher by 7.07 points at 2,787.37. S&P 500 finished lower by 5.01 points at 1,552.58.

Twenty-four of thirty Dow stocks ended in red. H-P, Intel and IBM were three of the six Dow performers ending in green. Alcoa headed Dow’s decliners followed by Citigroup and Wal-Mart.

Trading was relatively quiet in light volume due to the Columbus Day holiday. Both U.S. government offices and the bond market were closed.

Apple, Research In Motion and Google provided leadership for the Nasdaq today. Energy stocks contributed to the maximum weakness, as the energy sector followed crude prices lower.

Google crosses the $600 mark and closes at an all time high

Market opened in the morning slightly lower. Barring utilities and technology, all the sectors were trading in the red.

Among deal related news, business software maker SAP has agreed to acquire rival Business Objects in a deal valued at $6.8 billion in cash.

Google gained 2.6% to $609.62 today and is up 6.5% this month and 31% this year.

Crude oil futures fell today and closed below $80/barel. Prices fell as dollar strengthened against its rival currencies and traders speculated that upcoming weekly inventory report will show build up in crude supplies for week ended 5 October, 2007.

Crude-oil futures for light sweet crude for November delivery closed at $79.02/barrel (lower by $2.2/barrel or 2.71%) on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract touched $78.35 during the session, the lowest intraday price since mid September. The dollar index rose 0.6% today against euro.

Volume on the New York Stock Exchange topped 851 million shares, with declining issues outpacing advancers more than 2 to 1. On the Nasdaq, nearly 1.5 billion shares exchanged hands and decliners topped advancers 4 to 3.

For tomorrow, investors will have minutes from the FOMC's 18 September meeting. Other than that, Alcoa will release its latest quarterly results after the market's close.