Markets mixed at the close Tuesday
NEW YORK, May 17 (UPI) -- U.S. markets closed mixed Tuesday after the Commerce Department said home construction showed no signs of improvement in April.
The department said building permits issued in April fell 4 percent, while housing starts dropped 10.6 percent compared with March.
The figures highlight a slump that goes beyond construction firms. Buying a home generally indicates a long list of consumer purchases will follow as new homes require furniture, appliances, towels, curtains and lawn mowers.
By close of trading on Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average lost 68.79 points or 0.55 percent to 12,479.58. The Standard & Poor's 500 index dropped 0.49 or 0.04 percent to 1,328.98. The Nasdaq composite index of tech-dominated stock added 0.90 or 0.03 percent to 2,783.21.
On the New York Stock Exchange, 1,298 stocks advanced and 1,778 declined on a volume of 3.9 billion shares traded.
The benchmark 10-year treasury note rose 9/32 to yield 3.114 percent.
The euro rose to $1.4237 from Monday's $1.4182. Against the yen, the dollar rose to 81.42 yen from Monday's 80.76 yen.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index was flat, rising 0.09 percent, 8.72, to 9,567.02.
In London, the FTSE 100 index shed 1.06 percent, 62.69, to 5,861.00.
Gang of Six deficit busters lose Coburn
WASHINGTON, May 17 (UPI) -- A bipartisan group of six U.S. senators tackling the federal deficit is down to five active members, as Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., said he was bowing out.
Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., Kent Conrad, D-N.D., Richard Durbin, D-Ill., Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., and Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, have been meeting for several months quietly to forge an agreement that would parallel recommendations made by the White House deficit reduction advisory committee, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
But the group had gotten stuck on entitlement issues, The Hill newspaper said.
"We can't bridge the gulf of where we need to go on mandatory spending. I don't see that there's going to be any fruition in continuing them at this time," said Coburn, who arrived at a group meeting Tuesday without any staff members and left within 10 minutes.
The so-called Gang of Six, now a diminished Gang of Five, would still keep trying, Conrad told Politico.
"We're still talking, still trying. This is not easy stuff," Conrad said.
The group was aiming, roughly, to cut the deficit by $4 trillion over a 10-year period.
For Coburn, that meant including a discussion on Social Security reform. But Democrats in the group said they would discuss Social Security separately, not as part of a deficit reduction plan.
Coburn said leaving the group was "a recognition that we can't get there."
Soros backpedals on gold holdings
NEW YORK, May 17 (UPI) -- Billionaire investor George Soros spent much of the first quarter ditching his position in gold, a U.S. regulatory filing said.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Soros Fund Management said it pared down its holdings having to do with the precious metal by $800 million. Gold, meanwhile, has spent much of the year steaming ahead to a record price, hitting $1,557.40 per troy ounce in early May, CNNMoney reported Tuesday.
The year began with gold or gold-related investments making up about 10 percent of Soros Fund management's $8.4 billion portfolio.
The SEC filing said it ended the quarter with just $6.9 million or 49,400 shares in SPDR Gold Trust, down from $655 million or 4.7 million shares at the start of the year.
The fund also sold 5 million shares of iShares Gold Trust and pared back holdings of mining firms Kinross Gold Corp. and Novagold Resources.
In total, the fund's gold investments dropped from $1 billion to about $216 million.
In its own filing Paulson & Co., also influential in the gold market, held onto its $4.4 billion position in the gold market during the first quarter.
Paulson's SEC filing said it added to its position in two mining companies, Barrick Gold Corp. and Gold Fields Ltd.
1 World Trade Center lands Conde Nast
NEW YORK, May 17 (UPI) -- The ground zero address 1 World Trade Center in New York has landed a critical corporate tenant, Conde Nast Publications, developers and public officials said.
Conde Nast -- publishers of 18 magazines, including The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Vogue, Bon Appetit and Architectural Digest -- gives a legitimate corporate flavor to a building that some feared would be occupied only by government agencies in a neighborhood dominated by financial firms, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
Conde Nast has signed a 25-year lease valued at $2 billion, but the negotiations for the lease agreement included more than monetary considerations.
The publisher was especially concerned with smooth entrances and exits of its fleet of more than 100 executive cars and for the celebrity-occupied limousines that visit the company.
The lease calls for Conde Nast to rent 1 million square feet of the new 1,776-foot tall tower, for $60 per square foot per year, taking up floors 20 through 41 of the building beginning in 2014.
Christopher Ward, executive director of the Port Authority, which owns the building, said, "We built a new reality at the World Trade Center and this transaction will be the exclamation point on that turnaround."
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo also praised the deal, which he said "sends a message to the global business community that Lower Manhattan is alive, growing and open for business."
