Stocks retreat as oil prices creep higher

By Tim Paradis
Associated Press

NEW YORK » Wall Street tumbled yesterday as the price of a barrel of oil soared to a record near $124 and touched off concerns that the stock market's recent gains might have been premature as consumers grapple with rising energy and food costs.

Wall Street slid amid a cacophony of worries about the effects of rising prices. Kansas City Federal Reserve President Thomas Hoenig in a speech late Tuesday pointed to inflation as his main concern. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said yesterday that while the worst of the credit crisis might have passed, rising gas prices will dampen the benefits from the 130 million economic stimulus checks that the government is distributing.

Ed Peters, chief investment officer at PanAgora Asset Management in Boston, said, "It is going to be a drag if we continue to get rising prices. The oil price is just symptomatic of a broader trend."

But Stephen Carl, head of equity trading at the Williams Capital Group, said that while rising oil prices appeared to rattle investors, many had also seen sizable gains from stocks in recent weeks and wanted to preserve their profits.

The Dow fell 206.48, or 1.59 percent, to 12,814.35, after fluctuating early in the session.

Broader stock indicators also declined. The S&P 500 fell 25.69, or 1.81 percent, to 1,392.57, and the Nasdaq composite index fell 44.82, or 1.80 percent, to 2,438.49. The Russell 2000 index fell 13.58, or 1.86 percent, to 716.21.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers by more than 2 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, where consolidated volume came to 3.94 billion shares compared with 3.77 billion shares traded Tuesday.

Bond prices rose as investors pulled more money out of stocks and placed it in the safer confines of the Treasury market. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, fell to 3.85 percent from 3.92 percent late Tuesday.

Light, sweet crude rose $1.69 to settle at $123.53 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, but traded just pennies away from $124 during Wall Street trading.

The dollar rebounded against other major global currencies, and gold prices fell.

While stocks pulled back, the day was not without good news. The Labor Department said labor costs rose at an annual rate of 2.2 percent during the first quarter. That's down from a 2.8 percent rise the previous quarter, suggesting that inflation pressures may be letting up.

Market analyst Edward Yardeni noted that while the first-quarter earnings season began several weeks ago with worse-than-expected results from General Electric Co., it ended up bringing decent numbers, with earnings excluding the financial sector rising close to 10 percent.

"There is a perception in the markets we had a great move here since March, and that we need to take a break from the rally for a while," Yardeni said. "And then we'll be set up for a summer rally."

In earnings news, the Walt Disney Co. reported late Tuesday its profit in the most recent quarter rose 22 percent despite the Hollywood writers' strike. Disney was among the handful of the 30 stocks that comprise the Dow industrials to advance, rising 97 cents, or 2.9 percent, to $34.70.

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