US stocks fall; Apple to pay dividend

Published March 19, 2012 by
Business - Wall Street

NEW YORK (AP) ? U.S. stocks are opening the week lower after last week’s rally.

The Dow Jones industrial average is down 13 points to 13,219 in the early minutes of trading. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 is down a point to 1,403. The Nasdaq composite index is down 3 points to 3,053.

European markets are mixed, with France and Germany falling and Greece and Spain rising. Oil prices continued to rise, inching above $107 per barrel.

Apple shares are up about 1 percent after the company’s announcement that it would pay a quarterly dividend to shareholders, a move that many investors had been advocating.

The National Association of Home Builders is scheduled to release its March housing market index, which measures homebuilder confidence.

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