US stocks mixed amid poor Oracle earnings

NEW YORK: US stocks closed mixed on Wednesday after Tuesday's strong
gains, with the Nasdaq dragged lower on poor Oracle earnings and other
indexes finding little direction in holiday-thinned trade.

"Share
volume has been weak," said analysts at Briefing.com "The apathy among
traders is most likely due to the fact that many regular participants
have taken off for holiday vacations."

Most markets opened the
day in the red, after "a lacklustre earnings showing from tech titan
Oracle" according to Andrea Kramer of Schaeffer's Investment Research.

By the close the Dow Jones Industrial Average reached 12,107.74 points, up a meagre 4.16 points or 0.03 percent.

The SandP 500 was up 0.19 percent, or 2.42 points to 1,243.72.

The Nasdaq meanwhile was down 25.76 points or 0.99 percent to 2,577.97, largely dragged down by Oracle.

Shares
of Oracle, one of the Nasdaq's largest companies, lost 11.8 percent
after, in a rare event, it missed analyst expectations for quarterly
sales and profits and said customers are more cautious and worried about
economic growth.

Oracle's fall seemed to impact a broader range
of software and hardware firms. IBM shed 3.1 percent, Cisco 2.6 percent,
Hewlett-Packard 1.8 percent, and Microsoft 1.0 percent.

But the
broader market found a little bit of relief from news that US home
re-sales jumped four percent last month, according to the National
Association of Realtors.

"Sales reached the highest mark in 10
months and are 34 percent above the cyclical low point in mid-2010 - a
genuine sustained sales recovery appears to be developing," said
Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the NAR.

"It looks like more people are realising the great opportunity that exists in today's market for buyers with long-term plans."

The
uptick was in part overshadowed by the NAR's hefty revisions to
estimates of how many homes were sold and how many are on the market
since 2007.

"The massive downward revisions - averaging 14
percent from 2007 - underscore that economic data can be unreliable,"
said analysts at RDQ Economics.

However, for most commentators the twin revisions to inventory and sales meant the overall trend remained relevant. -- AFP