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Stocks show sturdy gains for the week, third quarter | The Honolulu Advertiser | Hawaii's Newspaper
Posted on: Saturday, October 1, 2005

Stocks show sturdy gains for the week, third quarter

By Christopher Wang
Associated Press

NEW YORK — Wall Street ended an erratic quarter with a modest advance yesterday as falling oil prices helped ease concerns about a weakening consumer environment in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

For the week, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 1.43 percent, the Standard & Poor's 500 index climbed 1.11 percent and the Nasdaq gained 1.65 percent.

For the month, the Dow gained just 0.83 percent and the S&P 500 0.69 percent, while the Nasdaq fell 0.02 percent.

And for the third quarter, the Dow gained 2.86 percent, the S&P climbed 3.15 percent and the Nasdaq surged 4.61 percent.

These developments affected yesterday's fluctuating market:

  • The price of a barrel of light crude fell 55 cents to $66.24 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

  • The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index for September dropped to 76.9 from 89.1 in August.

  • The Commerce Department said August spending fell 0.5 percent in August, compared with a 1.2 percent gain the month before. Income slipped 0.1 percent after growing 0.3 percent in July.

    Advancing issues outpaced decliners by about 19 to 13 yesterday on the Big Board, where consolidated volume amounted to 2.15 billion shares compared to 2.21 billion sharesThursday.

    The Russell 2000 index rose 2.77, or 0.42 percent, to 667.80.

    Bonds fell. The U.S. dollar was mixed against other major currencies in European trading, while gold prices edged lower.
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