Stocks mixed after Greece euro exit hint
The Wall Street sign near the front of the New York Stock Exchange. Despite a recent Wall Street downgrading, Suffolk County has sold $152 million in bond and revenue anticipation notes at lower interest rates than before the bond rating dropped. (Aug. 5, 2011) Credit: AFP/Getty Images
Just how nervous are investors about Greece? All it took to derail a day of stock market gains was a headline saying that Greece was preparing to leave the euro, an outcome most analysts had already expected.
Major indexes were higher for most of the day after the National Association of Realtors reported that home prices surged 10 percent over the past year, the biggest gain in six years. Then, with less than an hour of trading left Tuesday, news hit that Greece's former prime minister said the country was considering dropping the euro.
A 50-point gain in the Dow Jones industrial average turned into a 57-point loss in 45 minutes. A last-minute recovery left the Dow down just 1.67 points at 12,502.81.
Facebook's stock kept sliding, dropping 8.9 percent to $31. The social networking company has fizzled since its long-awaited initial public offering last week at $38.
"Existing home sales is one of the most important indicators for the housing market," said Dan Greenhaus, chief global strategist at the brokerage BTIG.
In other trading, the Nasdaq composite fell 0.29 percent to 2,839.08. The Standard & Poor's 500 index inched up 0.05 percent to 1,316.63. It was up 12 points earlier in the day. -- AP
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