BUSINESS BRIEFS
Stock market surges, falls back to close out a wobbly week
NEW YORK – U.S. stocks gave up a rally Friday and struggled to another mixed finish as investors continued selling former favorites like retailers. Household goods makers rose again as a week of choppy trading concluded.
Stocks surged in early trading after better-than-expected reports from companies including Procter & Gamble, American Express and PayPal. Procter & Gamble, the world’s largest consumer products maker, had its biggest rally in 10 years. But the gains for indexes faded after a report showed U.S. home sales fell for the sixth month in a row.
The S&P 500 index lost 1 point to 2,767.78. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gave up most of an early gain. It jumped as much as 229 points early on but finished 64.89 points higher, or 0.3 percent, at 25,444.34.
The Nasdaq composite sagged 36.11 points, or 0.5 percent, to 7,449.03. The Russell 2000 index lost 18.71 points, or 1.2 percent, to 1,542.04.
US home sales fall in September to slowest pace in 3 years
WASHINGTON – U.S. home sales fell for the sixth straight month in September, a sign that housing has become a weak spot for the economy.
The National Association of Realtors says sales declined 3.4 percent last month, the biggest drop in 2½ years, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.15 million. That’s the lowest sales pace since November 2015.
Sales of existing homes have declined steadily in the past year amid price increases, higher mortgage rates and a tight supply of available houses.
Sales fell 4.1 percent in September from a year ago.
European, Asian leaders want free trade, push back at Trump
BRUSSELS – Europe and Asia presented a united front Friday in support of free trade based on international rules and cooperation, starkly underscoring their differences with President Donald Trump’s “America First” policy.
While Trump is distancing the United States from global organizations like the United Nations, those at the summit – from countries that represent some two-thirds of the world’s economic output, 55 percent of global trade and 60 percent of the world’s population – have the economic clout to stand up to the rhetoric.
A written statement said the leaders “highlighted the vital need of maintaining an open world economy and upholding the rules-based multilateral trading system, with the World Trade Organization at its core.”
Return to sender: Postal union warns of fallout if US leaves
GENEVA – No international letters, no international packages: A top official with a 192-country postal union says that’s what Americans can expect if the Trump administration goes through with plans to pull of an international postal treaty over concerns about China.
Pascal Clivaz, deputy director-general of the Switzerland-based Universal Postal Union, says the agency reached out quickly to U.S. officials after receiving a letter from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo this week announcing Washington’s plan to pull out of the union in a year if the treaty isn’t renegotiated.
The threat of a pullout is the latest facet of Washington’s multi-level trade dispute with Beijing. The U.S. administration says the treaty allows China to ship packages to the U.S. at discounted rates at the expense of U.S. businesses.
A U.S. pullout from the organization, a specialized U.N. agency, would strip the U.S. from access to special codes needed to send and receive mail internationally, Clivaz said. Any U.S. companies that need them – like FedEx or UPS – would lose access too, he said.
—From wire reports