Wall Street appeared unmoved by a speech from Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on the plan to reorganize oversight of Wall Street; details of the 218-page plan have been widely reported in recent days. It would give the Federal Reserve increased power to protect the stability of the entire financial system while merging day-to-day supervision of banks into one agency, down from five under the existing system.
In midmorning trading, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 12.04, or 0.10 percent, to 12,204.36.
Broader stock indicators rose. The Standard %26 Poor’s 500 index rose 2.74, or 0.21 percent, to 1,317.96, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 7.50, or 0.33 percent, to 2,268.68.
Bond prices rose. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, fell to 3.41 percent from 3.45 percent late Friday. The dollar was mixed against other major currencies, while gold prices rose.
Light, sweet crude rose 63 cents to $106.25 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
In corporate news, Merck %26 Co. fell $6.82, or 15 percent, to $37.69 and Schering-Plough Inc. declined $4.98, or 26 percent, to $14.49 after medical researchers said the companies’ joint anti-cholesterol drug, Vytorin, failed to improve heart disease. The researchers’ findings, published on the Internet by the New England Journal of Medicine, urged a return to more established treatments for cholesterol.
Citigroup Inc. plans to split its consumer banking unit from its credit card business as part of a broader reorganization to cut costs and simplify the large financial institution’s structure. The company suffered billions of dollars in losses from investments in poor-quality mortgages. Citi rose 3 cents to $20.86.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by about 3 to 2 on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 212.9 million shares.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 2.45, or 0.36 percent, to $685.63.
Overseas, Japan’s Nikkei stock average fell 2.30 percent. In afternoon trading, Britain’s FTSE 100 fell 0.08 percent, Germany’s DAX index fell 0.59 percent, and France’s CAC-40 rose 0.01 percent.
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