Finance news. My opinion.

Stocks wavered in midday trading Friday as investors balanced signs of future growth in the U.S. economy with a looming deadline for Congress to reach a deal in debt talks.

The Conference Board’s index of leading economic indicators rose more than Wall Street analysts were expecting, a sign that the economy may pick up in the coming months. But many investors remained cautious as a key Congressional committee remained deadlocked on ways to cut the U.S. deficit.

A bipartisan panel must agree on making at least $1.2 trillion in deficit cuts by Thanksgiving. If the committee fails, automatic spending cuts will take effect beginning in 2013. Economists worry that a deadlocked Congress will erode business confidence and slow the already-fragile economy.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down 3 points, or less than 0.1 percent, to 11,768 as of 12:10 p.m. Eastern.

The Standard and Poor’s 500 index fell 4, or 0.3 percent, to 1,213. The Nasdaq composite slid 18, or 0.7 percent, to 2,569.

The Dow had been up as much as 84 points in early trading after borrowing costs fell for Italy and Spain. That is a signal that bond investors are less fearful of a default by those countries. Spain and Italy have had to pay high interest rates because bondholders fear that that they will default. Holders of Greek bonds were all but forced to take steep losses on that nation’s debt.

Europe’s debt problems are far from settled, however. Comments by German and British leaders Friday suggested that they have divergent views on how to address the debt crisis. German Chancellor Angela Merkel cautioned against expecting too much from the region’s leaders. British Prime Minister David Cameron called for “decisive action” to shore up the struggling currency union.

Positive economic reports this week _ including a drop in unemployment applications and an increase in industrial production _ barely budged markets because a European meltdown would easily drag down the U.S. economy, said Kim Caughey Forrest, equity research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group.

“Our economy might be improving, but the fixation is on what’s going to happen with the world banking system if defaults happen in Europe,” she said. She said investors are reluctant to take big positions because no one knows how Europe’s problems will be resolved, or how U.S. companies’ future profits will be affected.

In corporate news, ketchup maker H.J. Heinz Co. fell 2.5 percent after it said its second-quarter net income fell almost 6 percent, although its adjusted results narrowly beat expectations. Sales in emerging markets remained strong, and price hikes in other areas helped offset lower volumes.

Retailer Gap Inc. slid 3.5 percent after its third quarter revenue came in slightly below Wall Street’s forecasts. The company said materials costs are continuing to eat into profit margins. Salesforce.com plunged 9 percent after its quarterly results came in below estimates.

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Protesters camped outside St. Paul’s Cathedral in London say they are staying put despite a deadline for them to take down their tents or face legal action.

London officials attached eviction notices to the tents Wednesday, demanding they be removed from the churchyard by 6 p.m. (1800 GMT, 1 p.m. EST) Thursday.

The Occupy London group say they will not leave, but will mark the passing of the deadline with a rally outside the cathedral. The City of London Corporation says that if the tents are not removed it will go to court seeking an eviction notice _ a process that could take months low fee cash advance.

More than 200 tents have been pitched outside the famous domed church since Oct. 15 in a protest against capitalist excess inspired by New York’s Occupy Wall Street.

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ArcelorMittal, the world’s biggest steel maker, posted Thursday a 50 percent drop in third-quarter net profit compared to the same period a year earlier. The company blamed weakening economic conditions and increasing uncertainty in the market and said the outlook for the rest of the year was difficult.

However, Lakshmi N. Mittal, Chairman and CEO, said ArcelorMittal’s core profitability remained resilient.

Net profit dropped to $700 million in the third quarter, down from $1.4 billion a year earlier. But sales increased 22.6 percent to $24.2 billion from $19.7 billion.

“Despite weakening economic conditions, ArcelorMittal has reported EBITDA within the forecasted range,” Mittal said in a statement. “Uncertainties around the economic outlook have increased in recent weeks, impacting the confidence levels of our customers, so as we move in to the 4Q we are facing both volume and price pressures. However, our core profitability is resilient, supported by our growing mining business, our market leading value-added steel franchise and our management gains programs. As a result I remain confident that the Group’s EBITDA in the second half of 2011 will be above that of the second half of 2010.”

Net income for the quarter was $659 million, down significantly from $1.5 billion in the three months ending in June, as well as from the $1.3 billion reported for the third quarter of 2010.

In a conference call with reporters, Aditya Mittal, the company’s chief financial officer, said capacity utilization was about 71 percent in the third quarter, and he expected that to fall slightly in the fourth quarter.

In October, the Luxembourg-based company shut two blast furnaces at its site in Liege, Belgium. It was ArcelorMittal’s first significant closure since it was formed in 2006 as a result of the merger between Mittal Steel and Arcelor to create the world’s largest steel business.

However, Aditya Mittal said Thursday, “As of today, I do not believe any more capacity shutdowns are planned.”

Although Europe’s economic recovery will be “more muted” than originally anticipated, he said that in the long term there was potential for grown in demand in Eastern Europe, where there is currently low steel consumption per capita.

In October, ArcelorMittal pulled out of a planned deal to jointly control the Australian company Macarthur Coal Ltd. with U.S.-based Peabody Energy Corp. The total cost of the deal was reported to be in excess of $5 billion (euro3.62 billion).

Aditya Mittal said in the end it would have been too much money to spend for a company it would not have fully controlled. He said the money would be used instead to pay down ArcelorMittal’s debts.

He also defended the 2006 merger between Mittal Steel and Arcelor.

“I think through the merger we have created a much stronger company that is much more able to withstand the crisis better than either company alone,” he said.

In 2009, ArcelorMittal was responsible for about 6 percent of global steel output.

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China’s high-flying economy is starting to lose altitude. The big question is whether the world’s economic superstar will descend gradually _ or so fast that it harms a fragile global economy.

China’s comedown is being engineered by its policymakers. They want to slow its growth rate just enough to cool inflation without sapping job growth.

It’s a delicate task.

“Nobody can say with any confidence” if they’ll succeed, says Barry Eichengreen, an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

China’s explosive growth remains the envy of developed nations like the United States. It grew faster than any other major economy in the April-June quarter, according to The Associated Press’ latest quarterly Global Economy Tracker. Only Argentina’s much smaller economy matched China’s 9.5 percent annual growth rate.

By contrast, the U.S. economy grew at a 1.3 percent rate in the April-June quarter, before expanding 2.5 percent in the July-September period.

The AP’s Global Economy Tracker monitors economic and financial data in 30 countries representing more than 80 percent of global output.

Economists worry that China’s economy could suffer what they call a “hard landing.” A sudden plunge in China’s growth would harm the economies of the United States, Europe and small countries that need China to buy their coal, copper and other raw materials.

On Tuesday, a Chinese government group said manufacturing grew in October at the slowest pace in nearly three years, partly due to weak export orders. It forecast that the economy would slow further the rest of the year.

The threat from a slower-growing Chinese economy comes as the United States is still struggling to recover from the Great Recession of 2007-2009. And an agreement last week to ease Europe’s debt crisis might not prevent the continent from sliding back into a recession that would ripple through the United States and other countries.

When surveyed this year by the Society of Actuaries, corporate risk managers in the United States, Canada and elsewhere said a slowdown in China posed the greatest threat to their business.

A hard landing wouldn’t just squeeze U.S. and European exporters. It could also destabilize Chinese society. And it could escalate global trade tensions.

Hampered by inflation above 6 percent and slowing exports, China’s growth is expected to decelerate from 10.3 percent last year to 9.5 percent in 2011 and 9 percent in 2012, according to the International Monetary Fund. The IMF expects the global economy to grow 4 percent this year.

Developing countries emerged faster than other nations from the Great Recession. They’re now growing much faster than rich countries. According to the AP’s global tracker:

_The three fastest in the April-June quarter were China (a 9.5 percent annual growth rate), Argentina (9.5 percent) and Indonesia (6.5 percent).

_The laggards are from the industrialized world _ Japan (down 1.1 percent), Norway (up 0.3 percent) and Britain (up 0.6 percent).

_Growth is slowing worldwide. It weakened from a year earlier in 19 of 26 countries that reported April-June data.

China’s gaudy growth doesn’t mean much to Xie Jun, who runs a factory in the southern Chinese boomtown of Dongguan. He’s enduring a tough year.

His company makes and exports headphones, cell phones and computer accessories. It’s paying 30 percent to 50 percent more this year for chemicals, fuel and other raw materials. Labor costs have nearly doubled.

Xie’s customers are reducing orders, forcing him to lay off more than 10 percent of his staff at Dongguan Jincai Real Co. and leaving him with about 100 workers.

“I just feel hopeless,” Xie, 45, says. “It’s hard to say if it will get any better next year.”

China will likely account for nearly a third of global growth this year.

Exporting countries depend on China’s demand for raw materials and consumer goods. Mines in Australia and Chile supply coal, copper and iron ore. General Motors sells more vehicles in China than anywhere else, including the United States. China was the No. 3 destination for U.S. merchandise exports last year, behind Canada and Mexico.

China’s trading partners are watching warily to see whether it can avoid a hard landing. Economist Nouriel Roubini has defined a hard landing as a drop in annual growth to 5 percent or less. He says China must expand 8 percent a year just to keep enough people employed to “maintain its social and political stability cash advances pay day loan.”

Eswar Prasad, professor of global trade at Cornell University, puts the odds of a hard landing in China at 50-50.

Other analysts say they’re confident China’s policymakers will manage to reduce inflation gently without stifling growth too much.

The authorities “are well-aware of the risks,” says Bob Mark, who runs Black Diamond Risk Enterprises and has advised Chinese banks. “It’s not like they’re going to be blindsided.”

China’s central bank has raised interest rates five times since mid-2010 to try to shrink inflation. Even so, consumer prices jumped 6.2 percent from August 2010 to August 2011. That was fifth-fastest among the 30 countries in the AP’s global tracker. In the United States, by contrast, prices rose 3.8 percent in the 12 months ending in August.

News that China’s growth dipped to 9.1 percent in the July-September quarter from 9.5 in the April-June period was met with relief by some economists. Rajat Nag, managing director of the Asian Development Bank, says it suggests a soft landing ahead.

Eichengreen notes that Beijing’s communist authorities “have lots of levers they can pull, unlike U.S. authorities.”

Senior bureaucrats in effect run the economy. The government owns most of the biggest companies and banks. It controls the currency.

Officials can, for example, suppress the value of China’s currency, the yuan. A lower yuan makes Chinese goods cheaper overseas. The United States has long accused China of keeping its currency artificially low to give its exporters an unfair edge.

Chinese policymakers can also order state-owned banks to lend if the economy slows much. They can command local governments to keep workers busy building roads and bridges.

Roubini, a New York University economist who runs a research firm, thinks China’s authorities will use all those tools to keep the economy growing briskly through 2012. They’ll want to ensure a smooth transition next year, when a new president and premier will come to power.

But Roubini and others worry that the outlook after that is bleaker. He thinks China’s growth could sink to 5 percent or less in 2013 or 2014.

At the heart of the problem is how China has stoked its expansion. It hasn’t encouraged its consumers to drive the economy with their spending, as Americans do. Instead, it’s juiced growth by pushing exports and investing in factories, roads, railways and real estate.

Such investments account for about half of China’s gross domestic product, a broad gauge of economic activity. That is a wildly lopsided share that suggests China is investing in far more construction than it needs.

In most major countries, consumer spending, not investment, drives the economy. Last year, for example, consumers accounted for more than 70 percent of GDP in the United States, 63 percent in Britain, 58 percent in Germany and 57 percent in Japan. In China, consumer spending represented just 39 percent of GDP.

Behind China’s investment boom are bank loans that might never be repaid, because the projects aren’t expected to throw off enough revenue.

Roubini’s research firm estimates that China has wasted $1.4 trillion since 2008 on investments that will likely end up as bad debts.

Optimists say China is merely planning for the future. A growing middle class will eventually occupy the new houses, ride the new trains, fly from the new airports and drive new cars on the new highways. The new factories will make goods to meet rising demand at home and abroad.

But demographics pose another problem. China is aging fast. Largely, that’s because of population control policies that limit most families to one child. This year, 8.9 percent of Chinese were 65 or older. By 2021, 12.9 percent will be.

“A significant slowdown is coming because their labor force is aging,” Eichengreen says. By 2015 or 2016, he says, China’s growth could slow to 5 percent or 6 percent.

Economists have urged China to rely more on its consumers and less on exports and dubious investments. In Dongguan, factory owner Xie would agree.

“I am thinking about focusing more on the domestic market next year,” he says. “At least we have 1.3 billion people. It is a big market.”

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Asian stock markets were mostly lower Monday as investors shifted their focus from Europe’s debt woes to the strength of the U.S. economy. Japan sold the yen to limit its export-sapping strength.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 1.1 percent to 19,791.74 and South Korea’s Kospi fell 1 percent to 1,910.94. Benchmarks in Australia, mainland China, Singapore and Taiwan also posted losses.

The Nikkei 225 index in Tokyo swung between positive and negative territory after Japan intervened to weaken its currency, which had earlier hit a new post World War II high against the greenback. The Nikkei was 0.2 percent lower at 9,021.08 in afternoon trading.

The strong yen has dented earnings of Japanese corporations such as Nintendo Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. and hurt the economy’s recovery from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Finance Minister Jun Azumi said monetary authorities could continue intervening.

The dollar surged about 5 percent to above 79 yen, and Japan’s export sector _ whose fortunes are largely tied to the relative strength of the yen _ rose abruptly.

Isuzu Motors Corp. jumped 4.3 percent. Canon Inc. rose 1.7 percent and Nikon Corp. added 2.3 percent. Nintendo Co. gained 3.6 percent.

In Sydney, shares of Australian flag carrier Qantas Airways Ltd. jumped 4.3 percent after a court ordered employees of the world’s 10th-largest airlines back to work. The airline had grounded its entire fleet on Saturday following weeks of strikes by its workers, but an arbitration court on Sunday ordered an end to the strikes and canceled the staff lockout.

Last week, investors were cheered by the debt crisis deal reached by European leaders. European banks were asked to take a 50 percent loss on their holdings of Greek government bonds. They will also set aside more money to cushion against future losses. Leaders also pledged to expand the European Union’s bailout fund.

But economists caution that many details in the plan still have to be worked out, including the difficult task of deciding who will pay for it.

“With more questions than answers markets will be hungry for further details over coming weeks and until then it is difficult to see risk appetite stretching too far,” analysts at Credit Agricole CIB wrote in a research note.

This week, investors will likely turn their attention to the U.S.

A key jobs report for October, a Federal Reserve policy meeting and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s quarterly news conference are all due.

“This month is going to be another watershed insight into whether we are looking at a low growth environment or something worse,” said Ric Spooner, chief market analyst at CMC Markets in Sydney. “To maintain the low growth environment view, the market is going to want to see positive employment growth.”

A report Thursday showed that the U.S. economy expanded at a solid 2.5 percent annual rate in the July-September quarter. That helped ease concerns that another recession might be nearing.

But while the economy is growing, it may not be enough to generate many jobs. The U.S. unemployment rate has been stuck at 9.1 percent for three months. Analysts expect roughly 100,000 jobs to be added in October. Anything less could raise concerns that the economy may slow.

In currencies, the euro fell to $1.4034 from $1.4170 on Friday in New York. The dollar sprinted to 79.18 yen from 75.76 yen.

Benchmark crude for December delivery was down 96 cents at $92.36 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 64 cents to settle at $93.32 in New York on Friday.

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President Barack Obama is wrapping up a three-day tour through crucial political states, searching for votes and money and unveiling executive steps to prime the economy even as his jobs bill struggles in Congress.

Obama held six fundraisers, including star-studded events in Los Angeles. He gathered backers in Denver and Las Vegas, urging them to find energy for the 2012 campaign. And he coined a new slogan _ “We can’t wait” _ to draw distinctions with congressional Republicans who oppose his $447 billion economic plan.

On Wednesday, at the University of Colorado’s Denver campus, he will highlight a new initiative to make it easier for graduates to repay their student loans. He earlier announced a mortgage refinancing program and on Tuesday the White House announced new steps to help veterans.

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AmeriGas will buy the propane operations of Energy Transfer Partners for about $2.9 billion, the company said Monday.

The Valley Forge, Pa. propane retailer is paying $1.5 billion in cash and about $1.3 billion in AmeriGas common stock. It also will assume $71 million in Energy Transfer’s debt.

Energy Transfer Partners L.P., of Dallas, has propane operations in 41 states through subsidiaries including Heritage Propane. The deal gives more than a million additional retail propane customers to AmeriGas, effectively doubling its size. It’s expected to contribute to AmeriGas’ goal of increasing distribution by 5 percent per year.

The deal is expected to close late this year or early in 2012. AmeriGas Partners L.P. says shareholder approval is not required at either company.

“This transaction provides AmeriGas with an outstanding opportunity to grow its core business,” CEO Eugene V.N. Bissell said in a statement.

It is also the third sizeable energy deal announced in just two days.

Earlier Monday, Norwegian oil company Statoil ASA said it would buy Brigham Exploration Co need a personal loan with bad credit. of Austin, Texas for $4.4 billion in cash, giving it control of fields in North Dakota. That came a day after Kinder Morgan announced plans to buy El Paso Corp. for $20.7 billion in a bid to create America’s largest natural gas pipeline operator.

After closing, Energy Transfer will own about 34 percent of AmeriGas Partners’ common stock and will keep the shares until at least 2013. Energy Transfer will appoint one director to AmeriGas’ board after the closing.

The deal was structured so that AmeriGas’ balance sheet would remain strong and its credit ratings preserved, the company said. It will contribute to AmeriGas’ goal of growing earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization by 3 percent per year, the company said.

Shares of AmeriGas, which has more than a million residential, industrial and commercial propane customers, closed Friday at $45.92 and have traded in a range of $36.76 to $51.50 in the past year.

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Stock futures are rising, helped by encouraging corporate news in the U.S. and Europe.

Google Inc. rose more than 7 percent in premarket trading after the tech giant reported its third-quarter profit climbed 26 percent. Food and soap company Unilever PLC announced a major acquisition, and Swiss agrochemicals firm Syngenta reported strong third-quarter sales.

European markets rose.

Toymaker Mattel Inc. reported a 6 percent rise in its third quarter earnings.

The government reports before the market opens on retail sales in September, a key early barometer of consumer activity no fax payday loans.

S&P 500 futures are up 8 points, or 0.7 percent, at 1,206 at 7:51 a.m. Eastern time. Dow Jones industrial average futures are up 74, or 0.7 percent, at 11,466. Nasdaq 100 futures are up 14, or 0.6 percent, at 2,340.

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What Wal-Mart Stores Inc. says about how it’s reversing a slump in its namesake U.S. business will be at the front of analysts’ minds at the company’s annual meeting with Wall Street Wednesday.

The discounter also is expected to offer a peek into its winter holiday strategies and a look at the capital spending it plans to do.

The world’s largest retailer announced in August that its second-quarter profit rose 5.7 percent, and it raised its outlook for the year based on strong international sales growth and its cost-cutting efforts.

Business has improved steadily at Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Club warehouse stores, but the company hasn’t been able to stop a two-year sales slump at its U.S. Walmart stores, which account for 62 percent of its total revenue. The company says the weak U.S. job market and other economic woes are straining its core low-income shoppers.

Wal-Mart is a key barometer of U.S. consumer spending, which makes up 70 percent of the economy, including such major expenditures as health care. The retailer rings up nearly 10 percent of all nonautomotive retail dollars spent in the U.S. so any details about how its shoppers are buying everything from cereal to clothing will offer clues about where the economy is heading.

Wal-Mart has promised to reverse nine straight quarters of declines in the key metric of revenue at stores open at least a year by the end of the year. The comparison has fallen less steeply in recent quarters as U.S. customers respond to its turnaround strategies, including changing its merchandising after customers complained about their favorite brands and products disappearing from store shelves.

Wal-Mart started restocking thousands of products scrapped in an overzealous bid to clean up its stores; it stopped using gimmicks like slashing prices temporarily on select item; and it returned to its “everyday low price” strategy, the bedrock philosophy of founder Sam Walton.

Keith Goddard, CEO of Capital Advisors, an investment management firm, said he’ll be looking at how Wal-Mart’s price strategy has affected its profit margin.

“Wal-Mart had lost the perception that they had the lowest prices in town,” Goddard said.

As shoppers paid less for gasoline in recent months they should have been able to spend more on discretionary purchases like home accessories, analysts also said.

“My expectation is it will be good news,” said Madison Riley, managing director at Kurt Salmon, a consulting firm. “I think their efforts are gaining traction.”

Wal-Mart’s shares have risen almost 6 percent since mid-August and 2 percent since the beginning of the year. They are hovering near $55 as investors become more hopeful.

Wal-Mart has been facing increasing competition, particularly from dollar stores, which are offering more name-brand merchandise. Heading into the crucial winter holidays, the climate is expected to get still more competitive.

In response, Wal-Mart, which ditched pay-as-you-go plans in 2006, is rolling out holiday layaway plan that will last from Oct. 17 through Dec. 16. It also is offering more toys for $5 to $10.

Analysts will hope to hear more details such merchandising strategies during the meeting Wednesday in Rogers, Ark., near Wal-Mart’s headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. They’ll also want an update on Wal-Mart’s expansion plans.

Citi Investment Research’s Deborah Weinswig wrote in a research report published Thursday that she expects Wal-Mart to spend more on adding stores in 2012 as it expands abroad and rolls out its small-format stores in the U.S.

It opened the first four Walmart Express stores in the months since June and plans to open 15 to 20 more this year. Walmart Express stores are less than one-tenth as big as supercenters and carry essentials from groceries to general merchandise like hammers and pre-paid phones.

And it has sped up the addition of Neighborhood Market stores, which carry groceries, pharmaceutical products and some general merchandise. There are now about 185.

That’s compared with more than 3,500 Wal-Mart stores in the U.S., of which more than 2,900 are supercenters, plus about 600 Sam’s Club stores. Sam’s Clubs account for about 12 percent of the company’s total revenue.

“We are facing a resizing of the retail footprint,” said Riley. “Looking for ways to address that challenge is a good thing.”

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A three-day rally faded on Wall Street Friday after a mixed jobs report and credit-rating cuts for Italy and Spain.

Indexes drifted between gains and losses in the morning, then turned lower after the Fitch agency cut Spain and Italy’s credit ratings, saying they are more likely to default because of the spreading debt crisis in Europe.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 34 points, or 0.3 percent, to 11,089 at 12:45 p.m. Eastern time. Financial stocks led the Dow lower.

Broader indexes fell even more. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index lost 10, or 0.9 percent, to 1,155. The Nasdaq composite index fell 32, or 1.3 percent, to 2,474.

U.S. employers added 103,000 jobs last month, about double what economists had expected, the Labor Department said earlier Friday. The government also said more jobs were added in July and August than previously reported. Economists said the report countered short-term fears that the U.S. might be entering another recession. Yet it offered few signs that strong growth will return soon.

Traders bought companies expected to do well even in a slow economy. Utilities, consumer staples and telecommunications rose the most of the S&P’s 10 industry groups.

The gains in hiring weren’t enough to lower the unemployment rate, which remained steady at 9.1 percent for the third straight month. Traders watch the employment report closely because it provides the first significant snapshot of the previous month’s economic performance and clues to the broader outlook for the U.S. economy.

The report led traders to sell ultra-safe investments that earn small returns such as U.S. Treasurys. Minutes after the report came out, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.11 percent from 1.98 percent. It fell back to 2.06 percent after the rating cuts renewed some fears about Europe.

The monthly jobs report is one of the few pieces of data powerful enough to overshadow traders’ fears about Europe’s festering debt crisis Internet Payday loans. Markets gyrated this summer as concerns intensified about a default by Greece. Many analysts now believe a default is unavoidable, and question whether Europe can prevent it from causing financial markets to seize up.

Short-term traders have reacted strongly to minor European developments, rumors and speculation. The Dow has closed up or down more than 100 points for nine straight trading days, the longest such streak since November 2008, in the middle of the financial crisis. The Dow soared 468 points, or 4.4 percent, Tuesday through Thursday.

Makers of high-tech lap equipment skidded after Illumina Inc. withdrew its annual earnings forecast, saying demand from government and academic customers had decreased in the slowing economy. Illumina lost one-third of its value. PerkinElmer Inc. plunged 9 percent; Thermo Fisher Inc. and Agilent Technologies Inc. lost 7 percent.

Sprint Nextel Inc. plunged 8 percent after the company said it needs to borrow money to build out a new high-speed data network. It had risen sharply earlier in the day after the company said its new deal to sell Apple Inc.’s iPhone will add to its revenue in the coming quarters.

Clearwire Corp. plummeted 26 percent after Sprint said it would stop selling phones that work on the company’s network at the end of next year. Sprint is building its own high-speed wireless network.

Bank of America Corp. plunged 5 percent, the most in the Dow, after weeks of sharp movements caused by concerns about legal costs the bank faces over shoddy mortgages that it sold.

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. lost 3 percent. Financial stocks have been extremely volatile because of fears that Europe’s problems could spill over in the U.S. banking industry.

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