Stocks are narrowly mixed

Stocks are narrowly mixed

	Published : Fri, 19 Jan 2007 16:41 By : Agencies Print this Story

NEW YORK (AFX) - Stocks were narrowly mixed in early trading Friday after profit reports and forecasts from blue chip names like International Business Machines Corp. and General Electric Co. failed to impress Wall Street and sent investors searching for other catalysts to drive the markets higher.

Concerns about how profits will hold up have unnerved investors already skittish by the recent tug-of-war over whether stocks will move higher in 2007 with the same resolve as in 2006. Recent weakness in technology stocks has upset Wall Street and on Thursday led the Nasdaq composite index to its biggest drop since late November.

Though the mood on Wall Street might have soured somewhat in the new year, consumers appear decidedly more upbeat. Consumer sentiment, as tracked by a University of Michigan's survey, showed a preliminary reading of 98.0 for January compared with 91.7 in December. It is the highest showing since January 2004.

In midmorning trading, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 16.26, or 0.13 percent, at 12,551.67.

Broader stock indicators were mixed. The Standard & Poor's 500 index was up 0.96, or 0.07 percent, at 1,427.33, and the Nasdaq was down 3.88, or 0.16 percent, at 2,439.33.

Bonds were little changed by the earnings news, with the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note flat at 4.77 percent, compared with late Thursday. The dollar was mixed against other major currencies, while gold prices rose.

Oil rose 60 cents to $51.08 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The increase follows sharp declines in recent sessions and could signal that investors are eager to buy oil to cover previous commitments as they head into the weekend.

In corporate news, IBM fell $4.53, or 4.6 percent, to $94.92 after the company's better-than-expected fourth-quarter profit met with little enthusiasm from investors. Part of the profit increase was due to changes to the company's tax rates. The company's forecast was near the lower end of its growth target of 10 percent to 12 percent.

GE slid 81 cents, or 2.1 percent, to $37.19 after the conglomerate's first-quarter forecast disappointed some investors.

Motorola Inc., which warned in early January that discounts on mobile phones would cut into fourth-quarter profits, posted a 48 drop in earnings. However, the stock rose 22 cents to $18.93 per share after the earnings were better than the company's recent forecast.

Declining issues narrowly outnumbered advancers on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 276.6 million shares.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies was down 1.39, or 0.18 percent, at 776.82.

Overseas, Japan's Nikkei stock closed down 0.35 percent. In afternoon trading, Britain's FTSE 100 was up 0.13 percent, Germany's DAX index was up 0.50 percent, and France's CAC-40 was up 0.73 percent.