No motivation for buyers on Wall Street

Herald Globe Wednesday 22nd February, 2012

U.S. stocks slipped on Wednesday as the euphoria over the Greek debt deal, as muted as it was, wore off.

The main action was on foreign currency markets where the Japanese yen continued to slide, breaching the 80.00 level.

The major stock indices have been showing signs of exhaustion after making substantial gains in recent months.

The Standard and Poors 500 is up more than 20% in the past four months.

"We had some modestly weak data from Europe and China, but today is mostly just another day of churning as we sit close to that key level of 1,360 on the SP," Jack DeGan, chief investment officer at Harbor Advisory Corp in Portsmouth, New Hampshire was quoted by newsagency Thomson Reuters as saying.

"There is definitely a technical effect on the market and today's selling is related to that. If we punch through the level and stay above, the market could definitely move higher."

In mid-afternoon trading Wednesday the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 27.02 points or 0.21% at 12,938.67.

The Nasdaq Composite was down 15.40 points or 0.52% at 2,933.17.

The Standard and Poor's 500 was down 4.56 points or 0.33% at 1,357.66.

The Japanese yen traded significantly weaker at 80.31 around the New York close Wednesday.

The euro was marginally stronger at 1.3252.

The British pound softened to 1.5679. The Swiss franc rose to 0.9102.

The Australian dollar eased a fraction to 1.0645. The New Zealand dollar was lower at 0.8309.

The Canadian dollar weakened to 0.9992.