Wall Street edges higher in cautious trade

By Andrei Postelnicu in New York
FT.com
September 24 2004

Wall Street stocks inched higher on Friday morning amid widespread caution in the face of a rising oil price and fears it could squeeze corporate profits and consumer budgets.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was 0.1 per cent higher at 10,049.60 while the S&P 500 index added 0.2 per cent to 1,109.99. Nasdaq Composite put on 0.2 per cent to 1,890.82.

Among stocks in the news, Boeing shares were fractionally higher at $53.0 after its chief executive reiterated the aerospace group’s forecasts for the year.

Shares in Oracle added 0.7 per cent to $11.13 in early trading and PeopleSoft was 3 per cent higher at $19.82 after European regulators were poised to approve Oracle’s bid for PeopleSoft.

Elsewhere in the software sector, shares of PalmSource tumbled 14.9 per cent to $21.33 after the maker of operating system software for handheld computers announced a narrower loss but warned it would be affected by Sony’s withdrawal from the market for handheld devices.

On Thursday, the Dow was off 0.7 per cent at 10,039.13, while the broader S&P 500 was 0.4 per cent lower at 1,108.72. The Nasdaq Composite added 0.2 per cent to 1,888.56.

Second Mortgage News