U.S. markets mixed
NEW YORK, Jan. 29 (UPI) -- U.S. stock indexes were mixed Tuesday in New York.
Markets closed mixed Monday and got off to a tentative start Tuesday.
In afternoon trading on Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average gained some momentum, adding 70.02 points or 0.5 percent to 13,951.95. The Nasdaq composite of tech-oriented stocks lost 3.79 points or 0.12 percent to 3,150.51. The Standard and Poor's 500 index added 7.15 points or 0.48 percent to 1,507.33.
The Conference Board said Tuesday that their consumer confidence index fell in January for the third consecutive month. The S&P/Case-Shiller home price index slipped marginally month-to-month in November, but posted strong gains over November 2011.
The 10-year treasury note fell 9/32 to yield 1.995 percent.
Against the dollar, the euro rose to $1.3489 from Monday's $1.3455. The dollar fell to 90.72 yen from Monday's 90.85 yen.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index added 0.39 percent, 42.41 points, to 10,866.72.
In London, the FTSE 100 index gained 0.71 percent, 44.78 points, to 6,339.19.
Service industries show revenue gain
WASHINGTON, Jan. 29 (UPI) -- Ten of 11 service sector industries showed revenue growth from 2010 to 2011, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Tuesday.
The exception for revenue growth noted in the 2011 Service Annual Survey was in the finance and insurance sector where revenue declined by $35 billion to $3.3 trillion year-to-year, the report said.
Within the finance sector, the report said investment banking and securities posted $135 billion in revenue for 2011, down 13.1 percent from the $155.9 billion in revenue for 2010.
Despite the slow economic recovery, even real estate and rental and leasing as a group experienced a 5 percent year-to-year revenue increase from $406.4 billion to $426.8 billion.
The sharpest revenue jump came in the information sector. Within that group, revenue for Internet publishing and broadcasting and Web search portals rose 20.8 percent from $41.7 billion in 2010 to 50.4 billion in 2011, the bureau said.
Among the highlights, utilities experienced a revenue climb of 3.4 percent to $550.2 billion, transportation and warehousing experienced a bump of 11.1 percent to $736.3 billion, wireless telecommunication carriers saw their revenue climb 6.9 percent to $208.9 billion, and educational services experienced a 5.9 percent revenue gain to $59.2 billion.
Home prices off slightly month-to-month
NEW YORK, Jan. 29 (UPI) -- U.S. home prices slipped October to November, but showed strong gains from 12 months earlier, a closely watched price index said.
The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller report said prices dropped 0.2 percent from October in a 10-city composite sample of U.S. cities. Prices slid 0.1 percent month-to-month in the report's 20-city sampler.
Prices in the 10-city grouping rose 4.5 percent from November 2011, however, while prices among the larger sampling group rose 5.5 percent.
Nineteen of 20 cities had annual price gains in November. Prices rose 22.8 percent in Phoenix, 12.7 percent in San Francisco, 11.9 percent in Detroit, 1.8 percent in Cleveland, and 0.8 percent in Chicago.
The price index fell 1.2 percent from November 2011 in New York, the only city where prices fell over 12 months.
On a month-to-month basis, prices were down in half the cities monitored in the report.
Prices dropped from October in Boston, Charlotte, N.C., Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, New York, Portland, Ore., Tampa, Fla., and Washington.
Prices rose from October in Atlanta, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle.
"Winter is usually a weak period for housing which explains why we now see about half the cities with falling month-to-month prices compared to 20 out of 20 seeing rising prices last summer," said David Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices. "The better annual price changes also point to seasonal weakness rather than a reversal in the housing market. Further evidence that the weakness is seasonal is seen in the seasonally adjusted figures: only New York saw prices fall on a seasonally adjusted basis while Cleveland was flat."
Consumer confidence slides
NEW YORK, Jan. 29 (UPI) -- U.S. consumer confidence dropped in January for the third consecutive month, the Conference Board said Tuesday.
Despite a recent spate of positive economic data and improvements in the housing market, the Conference Board said the Consumer Confidence Index deteriorated further in January, dropping from 66.7 in December to 58.6.
Economists had expected a much milder decline,calling for a drop to 64..
The Conference Board uses 1985 as a base year, assigning the average confidence of 1985 a value of 100, giving the index a reference point.
In January, 16.7 percent of respondents to a survey that involves more than 5,000 households indicated they believed business conditions were "good," a drop from December, when 17.2 percent indicated economic conditions were favorable for business.
Respondents who indicated they believed business conditions were "bad" in January rose from 26.3 percent to 27.4 percent..
The percentage of respondents indicating jobs were "plentiful," fell from 10.8 percent to 8.6 percent while those indicating jobs were "hard to get" rose from 36.1 percent to 37.7 percent, the Conference Board said.
"Consumers are more pessimistic about the economic outlook and, in particular, their financial situation. The increase in the payroll tax has undoubtedly dampened consumers' spirits and it may take a while for confidence to rebound and consumers to recover from their initial paycheck shock," said Lynn Franco, director of the board's Consumer Research Center.
