LITTLE ROCK — U.S. stocks closed lower after uneven trading Tuesday as fears about the “fiscal cliff” and Greece tipped major indexes between gains and losses. A surge in Home Depot’s stock prevented a steeper drop for the Dow Jones industrial average.
The Dow closed down 58.90 points, or 0.5 percent, at 12,756.18. It would have been lower without support from Home Depot, whose stock jumped 3.6 percent after the retailer beat expectations for its third-quarter earnings.
Stocks had opened lower after European leaders postponed the latest aid package for Greece. The Dow turned positive in the first hour of trading and rose solidly through the morning, gaining as much as 83 points. Starting about 2 p.m., the average slid steadily into the red.
Other indexes also closed lower. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index lost 5.50 points, or 0.4 percent, to 1,374.53. The Nasdaq composite index fell 20.37 points, or 0.7 percent, to 2,883.89. Consolidated volume was 3.4 billion shares.
Investors are trading against the backdrop of the government spending cuts and tax increases that will take effect automatically at the beginning of next year unless U.S. leaders reach a compromise before then.
Worries about the fiscal cliff pushed U.S. stocks to one of their worst weekly losses of the year last week after voters re-elected President Barack Obama and a deeply divided Congress.
“The longer we sit and do nothing” about the nation’s fiscal issues, “the more this market is going to oscillate between positive 40 and negative 60, until we know what’s going to happen next with all this uncertainty,” said Craig Johnson, senior technical research strategist with Piper Jaffray & Co. in Minneapolis.
European stocks had been lower but rose after trading opened in New York. Benchmark indexes in France, Britain and Germany closed modestly higher.
The next major catalysts for a market move, Colas said, will be gauges of spending by consumers on Black Friday, the traditional shopping rush on the day after Thanksgiving.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note slid to 1.59 percent from 1.64 percent late Friday as demand increased for ultra-safe investments. The U.S. bond market was closed on Monday in observance of Veterans Day.
Microsoft shares fell 3 percent after it announced the departure of Steven Sinofsky, who ran its Windows division. The unexpected move comes just weeks after Microsoft launched Windows 8, its first major overhaul in years of the operating system used on most of the world’s computers. Microsoft fell 90 cents to $27.09.
Weatherford International dropped 15.9 percent after the oilfield services company reported revenue that was lower than analysts had been expecting. The company did not report full results because of accounting problems that have led it to revise its results from numerous periods. The stock fell $1.73 to $9.15.
Apparel chain operator TJX Cos., the parent of TJ Maxx and Marshalls, rose 2.7 percent after raising its full-year earnings forecast and reporting third-quarter revenue that exceeded analysts’ expectations. The stock added $1.09 to $42.06.
Business, Pages 28 on 11/14/2012