Stocks Trade Mixed, Driven By Earnings, Debt Talks

Published January 20, 2012 4:54PM (EST)

NEW YORK (AP) — Microsoft and IBM are driving the Dow Jones industrial average up in morning trading after the tech giants reported stronger earnings than analysts had expected.

But an earnings miss by Google caused that stock to plunge Friday, and other stock indexes were slightly lower.

The Dow is up 39 points to 12,663, shortly before noon. That's a gain of 0.3 percent.

Microsoft and IBM are up by nearly 4 percent. Microsoft said sales of Xbox games and Office software helped push revenue up in the last quarter of 2011. IBM credited better sales of software and services and raised its earnings outlook for the year.

The S&P 500 index fell 4 points, or 0.3 percent, to 1,309. The Nasdaq composite fell 8, or 0.3 percent, to 2,780.


By Salon Staff

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