Stocks make little progress, dollar rises against yen after BoJ decision
By Sinéad Carew and Amanda Cooper
NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) -MSCI'S global equities index was down slightly with a mixed bag of U.S. earnings reports while the dollar rose against the yen after the Bank of Japan left monetary policy unchanged.
U.S. Treasury yields rose as investors sought a greater return for the risk of taking on rising government debt issuance before $162 billion in shorter-term Treasuries are auctioned this week.
Oil prices on Tuesday handed back some of the previous day's gains, as traders weighed rising crude supply in Libya and Norway against production outages in the United States and geopolitical tensions.
The MSCI world equity index, which tracks shares in 49 nations, lost 0.05% after hitting its highest level since late December on Monday. The Dow Industrial Average was down while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq were roughly flat.
«It's difficult for investors to really jump in at these levels with global problems occurring. You're just seeing strength in some names that have shown an ability to produce profits in a tough environment,» said Rick Meckler, partner at Cherry Lane Investments, a family investment office in New Vernon, New Jersey.
3M shares tumbled after it forecast dour annual earnings due to weak demand, while Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ) shares rallied after it forecast a strong annual profit and said quarterly subscriber additions were at a near two-year high.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 129.62 points, or 0.34%, to 37,872.19, the gained 1.49 points, or 0.03%, to 4,851.92 and the gained 20.74 points, or 0.13%, to 15,381.02. Europe's STOXX 600 index fell 0.16%.
Earlier, Hong Kong stocks staged a rebound to close up 2.6% after slumping the previous
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