US stocks rise on lower oil prices

Bargain hunters kept Wall Street mixed today, allowing blue chips to rise despite a new record high for oil prices. But fresh warnings from semiconductor firms sent the tech sector falling, and the three major indexes ended the week substantially lower.

Oil prices pushed past the previous record close of 48.70 US dollars on August 19, renewing investors’ fears of 50 dollars-per-barrel prices. A barrel of light crude for November delivery settled at 48.88 dollars, up 42 cents, on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Investors got a lift earlier in the session from a Commerce Department report on durable goods orders for August. While orders for goods designed to last three or more years fell 0.5% for the month, a large fall-off in aircraft orders was to blame. Without transportation equipment, durable goods orders actually rose a strong 2.3% – a sign that businesses and consumers may have started spending again after a nervous summer.

“Manufacturing seems to be going in the right direction, but the markets continue to yawn,” said Hans Olsen, managing director and chief investment officer at Bingham Legg Advisers. “And with oil, I think, with the potential to crack 50 dollars per barrel, it doesn’t give us a lot of reasons to move substantially higher.”

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 8.34, or 0.1%, to 10,047.24.

Broader stock indicators were narrowly mixed. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index gained 1.75, or 0.2%, to 1,110.11, and the Nasdaq composite index was down 6.95, or 0.4%, at 1,879.48.

For the week, the Dow fell 2.6%, the S&P was down 1.2% and the Nasdaq dropped 0.8%. Overall, it was the worst week for the markets since the first week of August.

As in August, oil prices weighed heavily on stocks through the week, but profit warnings and disappointing earnings from a wide range of companies - including Morgan Stanley, Wendy’s International, General Mills, Colgate-Palmolive and Unilever PLC – also drove prices lower as investors feared a worse-than-expected earnings season next month.

Consumers’ appetite for large purchases, which help fuel economic growth and benefit earnings, remained uncertain after the National Association of Realtors reported a drop in existing home sales in August. The association said 6.54 million homes were sold for the month, fewer than economists expected and down from 6.72 million in July.

Today’s economic data, however, had little impact on investors, who seemed to be bargain-hunting after the week’s substantial losses.

“The economic data is sending us mixed signals, good but really not great,” said Bill Groenveld, head trader at vFinance Investments. “We’re down this week, but if we can level off here for the next few weeks, if we can get some stability, I think we’ll be set up nicely for the end of the year.”

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by about 5 to 4 on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 1.25 billion shares, compared with 1.28 billion at the same point Thursday.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies was up 0.17, or 0.03%, at 565.97.