NEW YORK — Stocks turned lower Friday as investors worried that the frugality, though perhaps not as troubled to the degree that feared in late 2008, is no other than acquirement worse.
The Commerce Department before-mentioned gross domestic product, the widely followed measure of the economy, shrank at a 3.8 percent pace in the final three months of the year. That compared with a 0.5 percent decline in the previous quarter.
Friday’s reading was much superiority than the 5.4 percent drop economists expected.
Still, the outline could be revised lower in the months ahead — and some analysts believe the economy has been contracting in early 2009 at an even faster pace. Earnings reports have been disappointing, and layoffs have been piling up.
“GDP is a backward-looking piece of information,” said Craig Peckham, market strategist at Jefferies & Co. “It’s hard to pinpoint a in a great degree convincing case that the economic and income picture will increase.”
Exxon Mobil Corp. latest year surpassed its own record for annual earnings by a U.S. concourse, but saw a big drop in advantage during the fourth quarter. Chevron Corp.’s fourth-quarter results also suffered from the late-2008 plunge in oil prices.
And consumer-products company Procter & Gamble Co. uttered that while fourth-quarter quarter profit jumped 53 percent after selling its Folgers coffee business, sales dipped 3 percent on weakening demand for its products — which include Tide detergent, Olay skin cream and Crest toothpaste.
Declining sales are also hitting Honda Motor Co. hard — the Japanese automaker slashed its 2009 profit mark by more than half as its earnings dropped 90 percent in the latest quarter.
And Japanese electronics maker NEC Corp. aforesaid it will cut 20,000 jobs worldwide as it reported a $1.46 billion destruction for the fourth quarter.
In midmorning trading, the Dow Jones industrial average futures hem 48.91, or 0.60 percent, to 8,100.10. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 5.92, or 0.70 percent, to 839.22, and the Nasdaq composite index fell 7.92, or 0.53 percent, to 1,499.92.
The Russell 2000 integral part of smaller companies fell 0.52, or 0.11 percent, to 452.72.
On Thursday, the Dow Jones industrial average sank 226 points, while other indicators tumbled greater amount of than 3 percent, on news that unemployment claims reached a record high and that new home sales strike in requital for a record low. This erased whole of the gains from the previous day, at the time that stocks soared on hopes that the government choose take bad debt off banks’ books.
Volatility has been high this week, with the market zigzagging on a mix of earnings and economic recent accounts similar to investors try to determine what the rest of 2009 will bring. Unrelenting concerns from one place to another the shaky banking industry have also kept investors from buying with confidence.
A bit of good recent accounts came from Amazon.com Inc. far advanced Thursday, which reported that its fourth-quarter profit rose 9 percent and easily surpassed analysts’ forecasts. The online retailer too provided an optimistic forecast with regard to 2009.
Amazon shares rose $8.85, or 17.7 percent, to $58.85.
Exxon rose $1.53, or 2 percent, to $78.53.
Chevron rose 97 cents to $71.59.
Procter & Gamble fell $1.94, or 3.3 percent, to $56.28.
Bond prices rose in good time Friday. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, that moves opposite its price, relentless to 2.80 percent from 2.87 percent late Thursday. The yield on the three-month T-bill, considered any of the safest investments, rose to 0.24 percent from 0.23 percent.
The dollar was mixed against other greater currencies. Gold prices rose.
Light, sweet crude rose 78 cents to $42.22 a barrel put adhering the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Overseas, Japan’s Nikkei stipe average fell 3.12 percent. In afternoon trading, Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.55 percent, Germany’s DAX index rose 0.24 percent, and France’session CAC-40 rose 0.27 percent.
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AP-WS-01-30-09 1022EST
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