18 Sep 2009

Wall St eases

8:56 am on 18 September 2009

Stocks on Wall Street have eased with investors taking a breather after a series of gains.

The Dow Jones Index was down 7 points on Thursday to 9783.

The Nasdaq Composite was down 6 to 2126.

In Europe, London Paris and Frankfurt were up by between 0.5% and 0.75%. Earlier, Hong Kong and Tokyo were up more than 1.5%.

The Australian 200 Index was up 21 points, more than 0.5%, to 4714

In New Zealand, the NZX50 index was up 35 points to 3152 on turnover of $96 million.

At 8.10am on Friday, the dollar was trading at 70.94 US cents, 81.43 Australian cents, 43.15 pence, 64.64 yen and 0.4812 euro. The Trade Weighted Index was 64.53.

Brent crude oil on the spot market was trading at $US70.52 per barrel. Gold was trading at $US1010 per ounce.