U.S. stocks finished slightly lower Thursday, after Japan was hit with another major earthquake and the price of oil rose above $110 a barrel. In international news, a 7.1-magnitude earthquake occurred off the coast of Japan Thursday morning, hitting near the location of the March 11 earthquake. The news sent the Dow Jones industrial average down as much as 95 points, but stocks slowly recovered throughout the day. Meanwhile, Japanâ€TMs news agency NHK issued a tsunami warning that was lifted two hours later, with no reports of major damage. The troubled Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant did not experience further damage, according to NHK. In world markets, European stocks fell after the earthquake news, with the FTSE 100 in Britain dropping 0.6 percent. Asian markets ended the day mixed, as the Shanghai Composite in China rose 0.2 percent. In international economic news, investors feared the European Central Bank decision to raise its key lending rate to 1.25 percent could lead to inflation, and slow economic growth. In U.S. economic news, the Labor Department reported that the number of people filing claims for first-time unemployment benefits fell by 10,000 to 382,000 in the latest week. The U.S. dollar rose versus the euro but fell versus the yen. Light sweet crude oil for May delivery rose $1.41 to $110.24 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, reaching the highest level since September 2008. Gold futures rose 80 cents to a record high of $1,459.30 an ounce. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 17.26, or 0.1 percent, to 12,409.49. The broader Standard & Poor 500 index fell 2.03, or 0.2 percent, to 1,333.51. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index fell 3.68, or 0.1 percent, to 2,796.14.
