US stocks close mixed

The major US stock indexes spent much of Thursday changing course. They fell in the morning, climbed higher in the afternoon then drifted lower in the final hour of trading. The Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 2.66 points, or 0.1 per cent, to close at 2,083.39. The Dow Jones industrial gained 5.74 points, less than 0.1 per cent, to 17,408.25 and the Nasdaq composite lost 10.83 points, or 0.2 per cent, to 5,033.56. US government bonds sank, lifting the yield on the 10-year Treasury note to 2.19 per cent from 2.15 per cent late Wednesday. In the commodity markets, gold fell $8 to settle at $1,115.60 an ounce, while silver sank 8 cents to $15.40 an ounce. Copper picked up a fraction of a penny to $2.35 a pound. The price of oil slipped to another six-year low Thursday. US crude fell $1.07 to close at $42.23. Brent crude fell 44 cents to close at $49.22 in London. Wholesale gasoline fell 5 cents to close at $1.714 a gallon. Heating oil fell 1.8 cents to close at $1.569 a gallon. Natural gas fell 14.4 cents to close at $2.787 per 1,000 cubic feet, according to AP.

-SRS