Markets make slide Friday
NEW YORK, May 18 (UPI) -- U.S. stock indexes slid Friday with investors keeping an eye on financial worries in Europe.
Alexis Tsipras in Athens, leader of the Synaspismos party and head of the Coalition of the Radical Left is maintaining a staunch anti-austerity budget line, calling for economic stimulus programs coupled with international aid.
The most recent election in Greece failed to result in a coalition government. As such, national elections will be repeated next month.
The day provided in an inauspicious public debut for Facebook, which began its initial public offering in midmorning trading on the Nasdaq composite index.
While Facebook was predicted to raise as much as $18 billion Thursday. In early afternoon trading on Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average shed 41.55 points or 0.33 percent to 12,400.94. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index lost 14.83 points or 0.53 percent to 2,798.86. The Standard and Poor's 500 lost 4.67 points or 0.33 percent to 1,300.58.
The benchmark 10-year treasury note rose 1/32 to yield 1.708 percent.
The euro rose to $1.2722 from Thursday's $1.2698. Against the yen, the dollar fell to 79.13 yen from Thursday's 79.28 yen.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index lost 2.99 percent, 265.28, to 8,611.31.
In London, the FRSE 100 index lost 70.76 perfect
Rating firms rattle European finances
MADRID, May 18 (UPI) -- The cost of government borrowing in Spain soared after a major credit rating firm, Moody's, cut ratings on 16 Spanish banks, statistics show.
Moody's cut the ratings citing the government's inability to come to the banks' rescue, if that would be needed.
The banks also faced "adverse operating conditions," the rating service said.
The Daily Telegraph reported Friday that yields on benchmark 10-year government bonds in Madrid rose to 6.21 percent, while government borrowing costs fell in Germany and the United States.
British debt was deluged with demand at a $2.6 billion bond auction, the newspaper said.
The flight to safer bonds came as investor service Fitch cut Greece's credit rating from B minus, which is already in junk status, to CCC with "heightened risk that [it] may not be able to sustain membership of the monetary union," Fitch said.
Stock markets in Europe turned lower on the news, with the FTSE 100 index in London hitting a six-month low at 5,338 points, the Telegraph said.
Markets were also lower in Germany and France.
In New York, markets traded on narrow margins, with the Dow Jones industrial average and the Nasdaq composite index both off less than 0.05 percent and the Standard & Poor's 500 up less than 0.2 percent.
Zuckerberg to ring Nasdaq opening bell
NEW YORK, May 18 (UPI) -- Facebook Inc. could end its first day of public trading on New York's Nasdaq Stock Market Friday worth as much as $104 billion, analysts say.
The figure would make the social network's market value higher than those of McDonald's Corp., Citigroup Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., analysts said.
Facebook founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg -- whose stake in Facebook after the initial public offering is estimated at $19 billion -- was to ring the opening bell for the Nasdaq from Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif.
He was to be surrounded by executives, engineers and other Facebook employees, a company statement said.
An estimated 421 million Facebook shares, trading under the ticker FB, were to start trading about 11 a.m. EDT at a starting price of $38 each.
Roughly 60 percent of the shares are coming from insiders and other existing shareholders, CNBC said.
Newly public technology stocks -- particularly ones that have captured investors' attention like Facebook -- often achieve double-digit gains in a one-day pop, The New York Times said.
Raising $18.4 billion would make Facebook's debut the second-largest IPO in U.S. history, behind only Visa Inc., which raised $19.7 billion when it went public March 18, 2008.
Visa sold 406 million shares at $44 a share -- $2 above the high end of the expected $37 to $42 pricing range, a United Press International review of records at the time indicated.
The Nasdaq OMX Group Inc., which owns the Nasdaq Stock Market and eight European stock exchanges, said it would hold a 2-hour conference call beginning at 10:15 a.m. "to keep the industry informed leading up to and during the Facebook IPO."
Petroleum demand slides with production up
WASHINGTON, May 18 (UPI) -- Demand for gasoline rose 0.3 percent January through April of 2012 compared to the same period a year earlier, the American Petroleum Institute said.
Demand slipped 0.3 percent for petroleum deliveries in April, compared to the same month in 2011. Gasoline deliveries, however, rose 0.9 percent to 8.8 million barrels per day, the API said.
Distillate fuel demand, which includes home heating oil, was up 1.3 percent, while jet fuel deliveries in April declined, the institute said.
"The mixed demand picture reflects an improving but relatively weak economy. Millions remain out of work. The most recent [Bureau of Labor Statistics] data showed job growth, but it was less than expected," said API Chief Economist John Felmy.
While demand rose, supplies of refined petroleum products "were ample," the report said. Gasoline production reached 9.129 million barrels per day in April, a record for that month and the highest 12-month increase on record. "U.S. refinery production outpaced domestic demand," the report said. Exports for refined petroleum products also climbed, gaining 1.7 percent over April 2011, the report said.
Domestic crude production also rose, climbing 6.6 percent in April to 10.4 million barrels per day on average. Canadian crude in the same period fell 4.3 percent to just under 2 million barrels per day.
