While you were sleeping: durable goods orders slump

There was a mixed bag of US corporate earnings and the latest in a string of lacklustre reports on the American economy.

Wall Street was mixed too, as a result. In afternoon trading in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.09 percent. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 0.14 percent, while the Nasdaq Composite Index eked out a 0.06 percent gain.

Among the bright spots was Boeing. The stock rose 2.9 percent after the company posted better-than-expected profit.

Shares of Procter & Gamble, however, slumped, last down 5.4 percent, after the company provided an earnings outlook that failed to meet the mark.

Shares of Apple gained 0.75 percent, as investors welcomed its sharply expanded $US55 billion share buyback and dividend plan, even as the company posted its first quarterly slide in profit in a decade.

US durable goods orders sank 5.7 percent in March, the largest decline in seven months, according to Commerce Department data. The report was the latest in a slew of data suggesting that the pace of recovery in the world's largest economy is losing steam.

"We have seen a considerable loss of momentum in the economy and that has been obvious in the round of data we had over the last four weeks or so," Jacob Oubina, a senior US economist at RBC Capital Markets in New York, told Reuters.

That was grist for the mill of US Treasuries, bolstering demand in a five-year auction. The Treasury sold $US35 billion in five-year securities at a yield of 0.71 percent, the lowest at an auction since November, while demand was the highest in three months, according to Bloomberg.

In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index advanced 0.7 percent from the previous close. The UK's FTSE 100 rose 0.4 percent, Germany's DAX increased 1.3 percent, while France's CAC 40 climbed 1.6 percent.

Economic data from the eurozone's largest economy underpinned a recent shift in expectations that the European Central Bank might lower interest rates as early as next week to help revive growth.

German business confidence dropped more than expected in April as the Ifo institute's business climate index fell to 104.4 this month from 106.7 in March.

"European markets are being supported by expectations of additional ECB stimulus which has helped overcome a slump in Germany's Ifo confidence index," Ioan Smith, a strategist at Knight Capital Europe in London, told Bloomberg News.

Meanwhile, it looks like Italy is moving closer to resolving its political stalemate as President Giorgio Napolitano appointed Enrico Letta as premier today. Hopes for a resolution has helped narrow Italian debt costs in recent days.

(BusinessDesk)