* Dow, S&P fluctuate in early trade, up after Philly Fed
* Gold turns positive on weaker dollar
* Greenback down on jump in weekly jobless claims
(Updates with U.S. markets, changes byline, dateline,
previous LONDON)
By Jennifer Ablan
NEW YORK, Feb 18 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks edged slightly
higher in erratic trading Thursday while the U.S. dollar
slipped against the euro and yen, after mixed economic data.
U.S. weekly unemployment claims rose, but regional factory
activity indices were better than expected while producer price
inflation ticked up in Thursday's data. Click on
[].
Late morning, the Dow Jones Industrial Average <> was
up 19.73 points, or 0.19 percent, at 10,328, while the Standard
& Poor's 500 Index <.SPX> was up 0.15 pct at 1,101.39.
The U.S. dollar has seen big swings this week with the euro
under pressure on concerns about Greece's debt crisis, while
U.S. industrial data has been mostly positive, and on Wednesday
the Federal Reserve revealed it had discussed strategies to
withdraw some of its emergency stimulus at its last policy
meeting.
The euro <EUR=> was up 0.11 percent at $1.362 mid-morning
in New York from a previous session close of $1.3605. The
dollar was down against major currencies as measured by the ICE
Futures Exchange's dollar index <.DXY>, slipping 0.02 percent
at 80.362 from a previous session close of 80.376.
Against the Japanese yen, the dollar <JPY=> was down 0.50
percent at 90.90 from a previous session close of 91.360.
U.S. gold futures briefly turned positive on a weaker
dollar, recovering from early losses triggered by news of gold
sales by the International Monetary Fund late on Wednesday.
At 0954 EST (1454 GMT) COMEX gold for April delivery <GCJ0>
was off 50 cents at $1119.50 an ounce.
U.S. Treasury debt prices were mixed, following the slew of
economic data.
The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note <US10YT=RR> was
down 4/32, with the yield at 3.7535 percent. The 2-year U.S.
Treasury note <US2YT=RR> was up /32, with the yield at 0.8506
percent. The 30-year U.S. Treasury bond <US30YT=RR> was down
10/32, with the yield at 4.719 percent.
The minutes from the January Fed meeting showed several
policymakers wanted to begin selling securities relatively soon
to cut back on the central bank's extraordinary economic
support programme.
"It is the FOMC's commentary on asset sales and the view
that policy tightening is likely to precede any decision to
start shrinking the Fed's balance sheet that makes it difficult
to not to be bullish on the dollar," Lloyds TSB said in a note
to clients.
The FTSEurofirst 300 index erased early losses to rise 0.3
percent on the day. French insurer AXA almost quadrupled annual
net earnings while consultancy Capgemini reported
above-forecasts earnings and Swiss Re swung to a net profit in
2009. The MSCI world equity index fell 0.2 percent after
hitting its strongest level in almost two weeks on Wednesday.
GREEK PROBLEM
The problems in Greece continued to weigh on market
sentiment.
The premium investors demand to hold 10-year Greek
sovereign debt rather than Germany's rose to a one-week high of
around 338 basis points.
Greece, whose debt mountain is set to reach 120 percent of
gross domestic product, needs to sell some 53 billion euros in
debt this year, including at least 20 billion in April and May,
and is looking for EU support to reduce its borrowing costs.
Bund futures fell 23 ticks, but two-year euro zone
government bond yields fell as low as 0.958 percent, the lowest
since the euro's inception, due to expectations euro zone
interest rates would stay low for longer.
Commodity prices were hit in early trade by a combination
of a stronger dollar and the International Monetary Fund's plan
for a phased sale of 191.3 tonnes of gold earmarked in its plan
to raise new resources for lending.
But at 10:30 a.m. EST, U.S. light sweet crude oil <CLc1>
rose 44 cents, or 0.57 percent, to $77.77 per barrel, while
the Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index <.CRB> was up 1.05 points, or
0.38 percent, at 274.89.
(Additional reporting by Natsuko Waki and Jessica Mortimer)
