US mkts end flat amid listless day of trade

By Varinder Bansal, Research Analyst at CNBC-TV18

The US markets ended flat amid listless day of trade and tensions persist in Egypt.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended up 2 points at 12,042. The Nasdaq Composite was down 1.5 points at 2,750 and S&P 500 Index was down 3.5 points at 1,304.

US Declining Sectors: Financials fell 0.9%, Utilities lost 0.5%, Telecom declined 0.5%

European markets ended flat: CAC was down 0.15% while FTSE was up 0.7%. DAX was flat. CBOE VIX fell 1.8% at 17.3.

Egypt Stock Market was down 3.7%.

Alert: China, Hang Seng, Taiwan, Singapore stock markets are shut today.

Egypt Update

Mubarak pledged not to stand for re-election in September

Political turmoil is spreading throughout the Middle East, cost of insuring sovereign debt of Egypt rose 40 basis points to 382

US Economic News

ADP Employment suggests that private payrolls added 187,000 in January as against downwardly revised gain of 247,000 jobs in December. Market expected at 145,000.

Global M&S

Whirlpool tanked 2.13% as it missed earnings estimate (Whirlpool India results today)

Global Miners: Rio Tinto was up 3.7%, BHP Billiton up 3.4% and Vedanta up 2.4%

Currencies

Dollar was up 25 bps versus Euro at 1.38

Yen fell 13 bps versus USD at 81.6

Commodities

CRB Commodity Index went up 0.5% at a new two-year high

Crude Oil rose 0.3% at USD 91.03/barrel

Natural gas was up 2% at USD 4.43 per MMBtu

Cotton futures rallied 2.3%

Sugar futures surged 4% at USD 0.35 per pound, highest since 1980

Gold prices fell 0.6% at USD 1331.70 per ounce

Silver was down 0.9% at USD 28.25 per ounce

Data to watch

Chain store sales, ECB announcement, jobless claims, productivity and costs, factory orders, ISM non-manufacturing index, Bernanke at National Press Club,; earnings from GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Royal Dutch Shell, Sony, Unilever, MasterCard