* Consumer confidence slips; oil prices hit energy shares
* Amgen beats Wall St estimates, boosts biotech shares
* Dow off 0.1 pct, S&P off 0.3 pct, but Nasdaq up 0.4 pct
* For up-to-the-minute market news click []
(Updates to close)
By Rodrigo Campos
NEW YORK, July 28 (Reuters) - The Dow and the S&P 500
dipped on Tuesday, recovering from earlier declines, as
investors shrugged off weak consumer confidence data and
focused on positive earnings reports.
Stocks in the healthcare sector led the market's afternoon
rebound, with biotech shares up a day after Amgen's <AMGN.O>
strong quarterly earnings report. For details see
[].
The health insurance sector also rose after Coventry
Health Care's <CVH.N> earnings topped Wall Street's estimates.
[]
The U.S. consumer confidence index declined more than
expected in July, a second consecutive monthly fall, as a
sluggish labor market continued to worry consumers, the
Conference Board said. []
Strong earnings have given a second wind to a stock market
rally that wilted in June after a 40 percent gain in the S&P
500 from its 12-year closing low in March.
"We've seen an 11 percent rally in 2 weeks," said Tim
Smalls, head of U.S. stock trading at Execution LLC in
Greenwich, Connecticut.
He said that with the markets technically overbought, and
looking for a reason to take a breather, the stock market's
slight decline is a good performance.
Smalls added that a lot of the afternoon recovery was
linked to a poor U.S. Treasury auction, as money shifted from
bonds into the stock market.
Shorter-dated U.S. Treasury debt fell after weak results
in an auction of a record $42 billion of two-year notes had
some analysts wondering if the global appetite for U.S.
government debt might be waning.
The Dow Jones industrial average <> shed 11.79 points,
or 0.13 percent, to 9,096.72. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index
<.SPX> dropped 2.56 points, or 0.26 percent, to 979.62.
But the Nasdaq Composite Index <> gained 7.62 points,
or 0.39 percent, to 1,975.51.
Amgen's stock rose 2.7 percent to $62.42 on Nasdaq
following the company's release of much better-than-expected
second-quarter earnings after Monday's closing bell. The Dow
Jones biotechnology index <.DJUSBT> gained 1.8 percent.
Coventry Health Care <CVH.N> shares rose 12.7 percent to
$22.59 on the New York Stock Exchange after the company's
earnings topped Wall Street's estimates and it lifted its
full-year earnings forecast. []
Aetna <AET.N> jumped 12.6 percent to $28.96 after at least
three brokerages said the insurer's recently slashed 2009
earnings forecast is achievable. Aetna and Coventry pushed the
Morgan Stanley Healthcare Payors index <.HMO> up 6.5 percent.
But the energy sector's shares weighed on the broader
market as the weak consumer confidence data took a toll on oil
prices, which had risen on optimism about the economic
recovery. U.S. front-month crude futures <CLc1> dropped $1.15,
or 1.7 percent, to settle at $67.23 a barrel. The S&P energy
index <.GSPE> slid 1.5 percent.
Exxon Mobil Corp <XOM.N>, down 1.2 percent at $71.89, was
the top drag on the Dow industrials.
Office Depot <ODP.N>, the No. 2 U.S. office supply
retailer, reported a bigger-than-expected quarterly loss as
the recession bit into demand from corporate customers. The
stock tumbled 18.1 percent to $4.38. []
U.S. Steel Corp <X.N> shares fell 2.2 percent to $40.35
after the company reported a quarterly loss and said it
expected all of its business sectors to operate in the red in
the third quarter. []
Earlier on Tuesday, Standard & Poor's/Case-Schiller
released data that showed U.S. single-family home prices rose
in May from April, the first monthly increase in three years.
[]
(Editing by Jan Paschal)
