U.S. stocks rise modestly after leaders in Greece ratify reforms

China National News Thursday 9th February, 2012

U.S. stocks were only modestly higher Thursday despite leaders in Greece ratifying reforms that will pave the way for a deal between the debt-laden country, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.

A statement from the Greek prime minister's office late Thursday detailed an agreement reached by the government to introduce a range of austerity measures, conditions of a $173 billion bailout package which has been under discussion for several weeks.

Wall Street remained skeptical with buyers only just outranking sellers.

At the close of trading Thursday the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 6.51 points or 0.05% at 12,890.46, well below the benchmark index's best levels of the day.

The Nasdaq Composite again did best of all, gaining 11.37 points or 0.39% at 2,927.23. The Nasdaq has now advanced on seven out of the last 8 days.

The Standard and Poor's 500 was ahead 1.99 points or 0.15% at 1,351.95.

"I'd expect a better performance for stocks," Peter Jankovskis, who helps manage about $2.6 billion at Oakbrook Investments in Lisle, Illinois, told Bloomberg in a telephone interview. "The market is acting skittish. Maybe people want to see the final document. If the EU can show that they can deal with a small country with a big problem, then investors may be reassured that some of the larger countries with smaller problems can also be handled as well."

Financial stocks were helped by a significant rise in Visa which announced it was beefing up its international market. Visa earns around 56% of its revenue from its domestic U.S. operations. Bank of Americ and American Express also made strong advances.

On foreign exchange markets the U.S. dollar was little changed except against the yen which lost ground.

Around the New York close Thursday the yen had dropped sharply to 77 61.

The euro was a few basis points higher at 1.3284.

The British pound was unchanged at 1.5817 while the Swiss franc firmed to 0.9117.

The Australian dollar rose slightly to 1.0787.

The Canadian dollar edged up to 0.9953. The New Zelaand dollar dipped to 0.8334.