NEW YORK, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- Stocks closed mixed Thursday after a day of sluggish trading brought on by tepid earnings reports and losses on overseas markets.
Blue chip Dow Jones industrials rallied to close up 14.89 or 0.16 percent to 9613.13. The Nasdaq was off 12.56, or 0.66 percent, to 1885.51 with Microsoft earnings to come after the market close. The Standard and Poor's 500 was up 3.36 points, or 0.30 to 1,033.72. The 10-year bond was off 19/32 to 99 11/32 while the yield, which moves in the opposite direction was at 4.329 percent.
On the Big Board advancers out numbered decliners 1,577 to 1,561 on volume of 1.1 billion shares, while on the Nasdaq losers over came gainers 1,701 to 1,396 on 1.4 billion shares traded.
Overseas, Tokyo's Nikkei 225 stock average lost 554.46 points to end at 10,335.16, marking the largest point fall for a single day since the terrorists' attacks in September 2001. London's FTSE 100 stock index, meanwhile, ended down 445.46 or 1.06 percent to 4,240.20. The Frankfurt DAX ended off 0.6 percent and the CAC 40 in Paris was down 1.2 percent. The euro bought $1.1769.
In U.S. economic news, the Labor Department said initial jobless claims decreased by 4,000 to 286,000 last week. But, while the report was an encouraging sign, economists remained reluctant to call it a recovery.
