Markets End Near Even; Consumer Staples, Healthcare Stocks End with Gain

4:11 PM, Aug 8, 2012 -- Stocks finished little changed, with most of the major indices near even at the close. Consumer staples and healthcare stocks performed best today, offsetting declines among shares of consumer discretionary and telecom companies. Technology stocks also finished slightly lower, pulling down the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index.

In economic news, U.S. worker productivity rose 1.6% during Q2 from the prior quarter, the Labor Department reported, topping expectations for a 1.3% gain and reversing a revised 0.5% drop seen last quarter. Unit labor costs also improved, coming in with a 1.7% advance - up from a 1.3% rise in Q1 and beating consensus estimate for a 0.9% gain.

Overseas, the Bank of England, in its quarterly report on inflation, forecast the U.K. economy will barely grow this year and cut its projections for future years. Despite that bleak forecast, BoE Governor Mervyn King said there was no urgent need yet to print more money and he threw water on prospects for further interest rate cuts.

Commodities were mixed. Crude oil futures initially rallied today after the weekly government inventory report found stockpiles shrank another 3.7 million barrels following a 6.5-million barrel reduction the prior week. Gasoline inventories fell 1.8 million barrels following a 2.2-million barrel decline during the previous survey period, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency.

Crude oil for September delivery slid 27 cents to $93.39 a barrel. September natural gas fell 3 cents to $2.93 per 1 million BTU. December gold rose $2.90 to $1615.90 an ounce while September silver fell $0.03 to $28.07 an ounce. September copper fell 2 cents to $3.42.

Here's where the markets stood at end-of-day:

Dow Jones Industrial Index up 7.04 (+0.05%) to 13,175.64

S&P 500 up 0.87 (+0.06%) to 1,402.22

Nasdaq Composite Index down 4.61 (-0.15%) to 3,011.25

GLOBAL SENTIMENT

Hang Seng Index down 0.04%

Shanghai China Composite Index up 0.16%

UPSIDE MOVERS

(+) SAVB, Agrees to $67.1-million buyout from SCBT Financial Corp (SCBT).

(+) DF, Adjusted EPS of $0.36 beats analyst consensus by $0.05. Guides Q3 EPS of $0.25 to $0.30 and FY12 EPS of $1.18 to $1.28. Street is at $0.25 and $1.18, respectively.

(+) CSC, Posts Q1 EPS of $0.26, topping estimates by $0.04. Revenues were $3.9 billion, ahead of estimates for $3.8 billion in revenue.

DOWNSIDE MOVERS

(-) OWW, Q2 earnings of $0.04 a share, ex items, trail estimates by a penny. Revenues of $200.98 million trail analyst consensus by $6.7 million.

(-) JIVE, Reported Q2 net loss of $0.19 a share, wider than the $0.10 loss projected by analysts. Revenue totalled $27.0 million - or $2.3 million below forecasts.

(-) PCLN, Guides Q3 EPS of $11.10 to $12.10 a share, well under the Street view for $12.81 a share, explaining it is facing headwinds from the economic slowdown in Europe.