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Friday, May 1, 2009

Dow, S&P dip on Chrysler bankruptcy 01 May 2009

The Dow and S&P 500 fell on April 30 after Chrysler's bankruptcy filing undercut optimism about upbeat corporate profits and reassuring job market data, says Reuters.

Even so, the S&P 500 closed out its best month in nine years despite the big U.S. automaker's bankruptcy after talks to restructure its debt broke down.

Uneasiness about Chrysler's bankruptcy wiped out earlier gains of more than 1 percent in both the Dow industrials and the S&P 500.

"We've got some fairly heavy-handed government intervention here, and the market is concerned about that," said Stephen Massocca, managing director at Wedbush Morgan in San Francisco.

Exxon Mobil Corp was the top drag on the Dow, down 2.6 percent at $66.67, after the world's largest publicly traded company posted a 58 percent drop in quarterly profit that missed Wall Street's estimates.

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 17.61 points, or 0.22 percent, to 8,168.12. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index .SPX dipped just 0.83 of a point, or 0.09 percent, to 872.81.

But the Nasdaq Composite Index gained 5.36 points, or 0.31 percent, to 1,717.30.

For the month of April, the Dow rose 7.4 percent, the S&P 500 gained 9.4 percent and the Nasdaq jumped 12.4 percent.

The gains for the broad S&P were the largest since March 2000, while the Nasdaq scored its biggest percentage rise since October 2002.

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