Today's Market Update with...

Ron Romaine, Value Line's Senior Industry Analyst

Following a generally down day in Europe, where 11 of the 18 national stock markets declined, Wall Street was also in the red. At noon, the Dow Jones Industrials had lost 57 points, to 10722; the S&P 500 was off 8, to 1158; the NASDAQ Composite had skidded 21, to 2370; the Russell 2000 small cap index had fallen 8, to 673; and the equally weighted Value Line arithmetic index stood at 2450, down 30 points. Leading the retreat at the Dow were Bank of America (BAC), 3M (MMM), Pfizer (PFE), and American Express (AXP), declining 1.4% to 1.8%. Coca-Cola (KO), Boeing (BA), and United Technologies (UTX) rose 1.1% to 1.7%. NASDAQ losers featured Hologics (HOLX), Joy Global (JOYG), DirecTV (DTV), and Adobe (ADBE), down 2.5% to 4.4%. Genzyme (GENZ), Teva (TEVA), Ross Stores (ROST), and Cephalon (CEPH) advanced 1.8% to 3.2%.

Producers of economic data took the day off. The near-month crude oil contract tumbled over two bucks, to $80.19 a barrel, and gold dropped by the same margin, to $1105.80 an ounce.

Interest rates eased a basis point or two, to 3.66% for the 10-year Treasury note and 4.56% for the 30-year bond