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--(www.FinancialNewsUSA.com)-- 07/01/2009 - US Market industry news provided by Financial News USA. NEW YORK (AP) -- Stocks that moved substantially or traded heavily Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Stock Market: Shareholders voiced disappointment over the embattled insurer's near-collapse last fall during a short, relatively calm meeting. Chip designer Broadcom Corp. boosted its takeover offer for the network gear maker to about $912 million from $764 million. The company said it will sell Britain's BG Group PLC a stake in its Haynesville shale natural-gas assets for $1.3 billion. A real estate investment trust filed complaints against Sunrise Senior Living and wants to terminate agreements on 64 properties. The auto parts maker is reportedly close to bankruptcy, facing a Tuesday deadline to make an interest payment or restructure its debt. The Justice Department opposes the airlines broad request for antitrust immunity to work more closely with other carriers. [Read the full article] NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell on Tuesday as an unexpected drop in consumer confidence cooled recent optimism about an economic recovery, but Wall Street still closed out its best quarter in a decade. The drop in the Conference Board's measure of consumer confidence in June suggested that the 18-month-long recession had yet to loosen its grip on the U.S. economy. Gloom among consumers is a major obstacle as their spending is a major driver of corporate profits and accounts for roughly two-thirds of U.S. economic activity. Tuesday's standout decliners included industrials, energy, financials and material stocks, some of the very same sectors that helped underpin the market's push to recover from the 12-year lows of early March as investors bet on economic stabilization. "Consumer confidence is the excuse du jour for the latest market move," said Tom Alexander, head of Alexander Trading, in Savannah, Georgia. [Read the full article] NEW YORK (AP) -- The New York-based Conference Board said Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index now stands at 49.3, down from its revised May level of 54.8. Because consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of economic activity in the United States, economists and investors watch it closely. Both components of the consumer confidence gauge fell this month. The Present Situation Index of how shoppers feel now about the economy declined to 24.8 from 29.7 in May. And the board's Expectations Index, shoppers' outlook for the next six months, dropped to 65.5 from 71.5. NEW YORK (AP) -- Newfound signs of stability in the housing market could still be threatened by rising foreclosures and slow efforts to stop them, according to two reports released Tuesday. The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index of 20 major cities showed the smallest monthly decline since June 2008. [Read the full article] NEW YORK (AP) -- Investors carried Wall Street to a remarkable second-quarter performance even though stocks' big spring rally stalled weeks ago. The major indexes all managed to end the quarter with double-digit percentage gains. Now, whether the market regains its momentum in the July-September period or hunkers down again will depend on what companies have to say in the next few weeks -- not just about their own prospects, but the economy's as well. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 11 percent during the quarter, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index surged 15.2 percent. Both indexes logged their first quarterly gains since the third quarter of 2007. The Dow also had its best quarter since 2003 and the S&P 500 its best since 1998. The S&P 500 index and the Nasdaq composite index are finishing the first half of 2009 in the black. [Read the full article] About Financial News USA Financial News USA is a Next Generation Financial Communications firm focused on the distribution of market moving news. Financial News USA has developed leading edge e-publishing tools including programming proprietary RSS feeds and enabling open source press release publishing across its network. Financial News USA has been aggressively expanding its news distribution network by targeting direct feeds to financial news and data providers such as FinancialContent, Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO), among others. Financial News USA offers a free news feed available online (www.financialnewsusa.com) to websites and financial services looking for content and for individual investors looking to stay informed on the financial markets. Financial News USA and its affiliates charge each client cash for news distribution and may take an equity position in the companies mentioned herein, please visit the disclaimer at www.financialnewsusa.com. 
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