Stocks soared in early trading Tuesday on the latest plans to save faltering credit markets, but the indexes pared their gains late in the day — and the Nasdaq gave back all its gains to end the day unchanged.
A plan to freeze home foreclosures and an offer from billionaire investor Warren Buffett to help bond insurers with municipal bond obligations boosted stocks in the early going, but fears that the latest moves aren’t enough to stem the seven-month-old credit market meltdown had stocks on the defensive the rest of the day.
Apple and Research In Motion led the tech pullback with losses of 3% each. RIM was weighed down after suffering a significant service outage, while Apple lost ground on fears of mobile phone competition from Google.
Yahoo lost 1% even though Microsoft signaled that it will continue trying to acquire the company.
Qwest, Nuance Communications and Veeco Instruments gained on better than expected quarterly results.
JDS Uniphase finally fell victim to profit-taking, down 7% on the day.
After the close, Applied Materials gained 4% after reporting better than expected results and new orders.
The Nasdaq was unchanged at 2320, the S&P gained 9 to 1348, and the Dow rose 133 to 12,373. Volume rose to 4.03 billion shares on the NYSE, and 2.22 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led by a 21-12 margin on the NYSE, and 17-13 on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 64% on the NYSE, and 44% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 50-92 on the NYSE, and 53-111 on the Nasdaq.
