Stocks Finish Mixed; Defensive Stocks Find Favor

Stocks Finish Mixed; Defensive Stocks Find Favor

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NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Stocks bounced off session lows to finish mixed Thursday as strength in consumer staples and materials sectors offset weakness in financials and tech. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 14 points, or 0.1%, to close at 12,285, after falling to as low as 12,163 earlier in the session. The S&P 500 finished flat at 1315, while the Nasdaq Composite lost a point or 0.05% to close at 2760. After the bellGoogle(GOOG_) said first-quarter profits rose to $2.3 billion, or $7.04 per share, from $1.96 billion, or $6.06 per share. Excluding items, profits came in at $8.08 per share, falling short of Street expectations of $8.10 per share The stock was falling 4% in aftermarket trading.

Stocks were weak for most of the session as economic data disappointed and concerns about European debt resurfaced. Initial jobless claims rose by 27,000 to 412,000 in the week ended April 9, exceeding the increase of 3,000 claims that economists had expected. According to Briefing.com, Wall Street was looking for initial claims to climb to 385,000, from last week's initially-reported level of 382,000.

Producer prices ticked 0.7% higher in March, lower than the growth of 1.1% that economists had expected, and below February's jump of 1.6%. The core rate, which excludes volatile food and energy costs, gained 0.3% in March, compared with an expected increase of 0.2% and growth of 0.2% in February.

European stocks , meanwhile, fell after German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Greece might have to restructure its debt. The finance minister's comments renewed concerns about the eurozone's sovereign debt crisis and pushed yields on Greek and Portuguese 10-year bonds to the highest levels in recent years.

London's FTSE lost 0.8%, and the DAX in Frankfurt fell 0.4%. Earlier, Japan's Nikkei gained 0.1% while Hong Kong's Hang Seng shed 0.5%.
Reflecting on the session's weakness, Peter Tuz, president of the Chase Investment Counsel, said, "The jobs number was clearly a little worse than expected, north of 400,000 again, and the market was expecting something more along the lines of last week's number. There's also the resurfacing of some European debt concerns, the budget battle in the U.S. along with some concerns over earnings not being as robust as expected. It's really too early to tell on earnings. We've only had a few companies report.

"The consumer staples and utilities sectors found favor and lifted stocks late in the day as investors adopted a defensive posture. Kraft(KFT_) and Coca Cola (KO_) were the biggest gainers on the Dow.
JPMorgan Chase(JPM_) was among the Dow's biggest laggards alongside tech names like Microsoft(MSFT_), Hewlett-Packard(HPQ_) and Intel(INTC_). According to a CNBC report, a note from Morgan Stanley said weaker demand for personal computers could hurt Microsoft.
The financial sector was among the session's weakest areas with the Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF(XLF_) down 0.9% at $16.13. According to a Wall Street Journal report, U.S. investigators are looking into whether major U.S. and European banks conspired to manipulate the rate at which banks can borrow funds before and during the financial crisis by intentionally low-balling their borrowing costs.
Shares of Goldman Sachs(GS_) shed 2.7% at $155.79. According to an Associated Press report, the head of a Senate financial crisis investigation panel is questioning testimony Goldman executives gave to Congress last year regarding whether the firm directed investors to mortgage securities that it knew would likely fail.
Although Goldman agreed to pay $550 million to settle civil fraud charges in July, Senator Carl Levin, D-Mich., said the subcommittee has found new evidence that Goldman's misleading went extended beyond that one case.
Two stocks debuted on the New York Stock Exchange. McDonald's(MCD) South American franchisee Acros Dorados Holdings(ARCO), jumped more than 25% to $21.20 after pricing its IPO of 73.5 million shares at $17 each. Car-sharing company Zipcar(ZIP) was up by nearly 55% at $27.93 after pricing its IPO at $18 a share. Shares of Research in Motion(RIMM) dipped 1.7% at $53.40 as the Blackberry maker's tablet device Playbook received critical reviews..
Also Game and toy company Hasbro(HAS) reported declines on the top and bottom lines in first-quarter. The company said earnings came in at 12 cents a share, compared with the profit of 17 cents a share that analysts had been expecting, according to Briefing.com. Sales slipped to $672 million from $672.4 million a year ago. The stock shed 3% to $44.40.
Ford(F) is recalling 1.2 million of F-150 pickups and Lincoln Mark LTs because of faulty air-bags. Shares dropped 1.1% at $14.81.
Glencore, the world's largest commodities trading company, plans to raise up to $11 billion in an initial public offering next month . The company plans to sell 15% to 20% of its stock in London. The IPO values Glencore at up to $60 billion.
In commodity markets, the May crude oil contract gained $1to settle at $108.11 a barrel. The June gold contract jumped by $16.80 to settle at $1,472.40 an ounce.
The benchmark 10-year Treasury fell 8/32, lifting the yield to 3.488%. The dollar weakened against a basket of currencies with the dollar index down by 0.4%.

Source: The Street

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