While you were sleeping: US stocks slip on Autodesk forecast; housing starts fall

Thursday 19th November 2009

Shares on Wall Street weakened after figures showed housing starts unexpectedly fell and consumer prices rose. The Nasdaq Composite declined after Autodesk Inc., an engineering software company, said it faces “challenging” conditions.

Housing starts dropped 11% last month to an annual pace of 529,000, according to the Labor Department. Momentum in the home-building industry slowed as consumers anticipated the end of the first-home buyer’s tax credit.

Building permits fell to an annual pace of 552,000 against expectations of a gain.

Labor Department figures showed consumer prices rose a still-benign 0.3% last month, or up 0.2%, excluding food and energy.

The Nasdaq fell 0.8% to 2186.56. The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.4% to 10397.21 and the Standard & Poor’s 500 fell 0.3% to 1106.72.

Autodesk tumbled 11% to US$24.07, leading the S&P 500 Lower, after forecasting fourth-quarter per-share earnings of 24 cents, lagging behind estimates.

Salesforce.com sank 3.1% to US$63.59 after the customer-management software developer forecast per-share earnings that missed some analyst estimates.

Boeing Co. fell 1.6% to US$51.70 after rival Airbus said it is still aiming for 300 sales by year-end. Hewlett-Packard fell 1.7% to US$50.45, pacing a decline on the Dow, and Walt Disney declined 1.1% to US$30.54.

Bank of America climbed 2.8% to US$16.21 after Bloomberg reported that Paulson & Co., the hedge-fund firm run by billionaire John Paulson, told clients in a note that the shares may reach US$29.81 by the end of 2011.

The U.S. dollar declined against the euro after Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard hinted at a slow return to interest rate increases while Cleveland Fed President Sandra Pianalto said the U.S. recovery will be “slow and bumpy.”

The dollar weakened to US$1.4947 per euro from US$1.4876 and earlier sank as low as US$1.5063, a 15-month low. The greenback traded at 89.38 yen from 89.25. The euro was at 133.64 yen from 132.77.

Gold rose to a new record of US$1,153.40 an ounce as the greenback’s slide spurred demand for the precious metal as an alternative investment.

Gold futures for December delivery were up 0.5% to US$1,145.20 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Oil rose above US$80 a barrel in New York after the American Petroleum Institute said inventories fell by 4.37 million barrels to 333.1 million barrels last week.

Crude oil for December delivery rose to US$80.23 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Copper rose to a 14-month high in London as the dollar weakened. Benchmark copper on the London Metal Exchange closed a US$6,880 a tone, having earlier touched US$6,992, the highest since September 2008.

In Europe, the Dow Jones Stoxx 600 fell 0.3% to 249.65 after the unexpected fall in U.S. housing starts. Among national benchmarks, the U.K.’s FTSE 100 fell 0.1% to 5342.13, Germany’s DAX 30 rose 0.2% to 5787.61 and France’s CAC 40 declined 0.02% to 3828.16.

Drugmaker Bayer dropped 2.8% after International Petroleum Investment Co. denied a report that it was in talks with five companies including a unit of Bayer, with the aim of making a European acquisition.

Xstrata Plc rose 4.8% led gains by mining companies as copper climbed to a 14-month high.

Cadbury Plc rose 1.2% after Hershey and luxury chocolate maker Ferrero SpA said they’re considering options for a possible takeover offer.

STMicroelectronics, Europe’s largest chipmaker, rose 2% after saying 2010 trading will be an improvement on 2010.

Businesswire.co.nz

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