The U.S. stock market pared its gains late Thursday as traders grew nervous ahead of Friday’s GDP report, while Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Symantec (NASDAQ: SYMC) shares were under pressure.
Yahoo shares fell 3.6% as investors remained skeptical of the company’s search deal with Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT).
Symantec (NASDAQ: SYMC) tumbled 14% after the company’s 13% decline in revenues missed Wall Street estimates.
Akamai (NASDAQ: AKAM), Digital River (NASDAQ: DRIV) and Level 3 (NASDAQ: LVLT) were also punished for their quarterly results.
Expedia (NASDAQ: EXPE) and Motorola (NYSE: MOT) gained about 10% each on their earnings reports, and Sourcefire (NASDAQ: FIRE) was up 19% on better than expected results. Motorola managed a small profit for the quarter.
Tomorrow morning, the U.S. economy is expected to show a 1.5% contraction for the second quarter, the first time in 62 years of Commerce Department data that the economy has contracted for four consecutive quarters.
Nervousness ahead of that report and the S&P approaching the 1000 level and the Nasdaq at 2000 appeared to encourage some profit-taking.
The Nasdaq rose 16 to 1984, the S&P 500 gained 11 to 986, and the Dow was up 83 to 9154. Volume rose to 6.04 billion shares on the NYSE, and 2.56 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led by a 29-7 margin on the NYSE, and 18-8 on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 70% on the NYSE, and 62% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 146-91 on the NYSE, and 118-15 on the Nasdaq.
