Stocks eked out slight gains, supported by strength in the housing sector, while energy stocks dragged on the market as oil futures fell. Energy stocks were the worst performers, falling 0.9%, after an Energy Information Administration released report on weekly oil inventories showed a larger-than-expected supply increase. Existing homes sales rose 7.8% in August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.82 million, better than the 4.6 million expected. Also, housing starts rose 2.3% in August to an annual rate of 750,000, short of the expected 775,000 pace. Sentiment was also bolstered overnight after the Bank of Japan said it would increase the size of its asset purchases by 10 trillion yen ($126.7 billion) to ¥80 trillion. Groupon jumped 13.86% after the co. unveiled a new mobile-payments service. But the tech sector was weighed down by a selloff in the semiconductors, as shares of capital-equipment companies retreated on a Korean news report that Samsung, a major customer, was planning to scale back its capital-equipment spending by half in 2013. Applied Materials shed 1.8%, KLA-Tencor was down 4.8%, while Lam Research also sank by 2.5%. Meanwhile, Barclays also argued that the reported capital-spending cut signaled that “eventual supply/demand improvements” for Micron and SanDisk. Micron gained 2.6%, while SanDisk added 2.2%.Also, Yahoo edged down 0.28% as several analysts praised the co.’s plan to return about $3.65 bln to shareholders following the liquidation of part of its ownership stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. In the evening trade Bed Bath & Beyond and Adobe were in the red after the companies reported earning slightly below expectations and issued weaker-than-expected financial updates.
