AlQa'dah 24, 1433, Oct 10, 2012, SPA - U.S. stocks closed lower Tuesday, as investors prepared for the unofficial start of the third-quarter earnings season. In international news, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi testified before the European Parliament in regards to Europe's debt problems. He said that eurozone interest rates are as low as they need to be, reiterating that the central bank was ready to start its new sovereign bond purchase program. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was scheduled to meet with Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras later Tuesday. Asia welcomed the latest intervention by the People's Bank of China, which injected 265 billion yuan into money markets. In company news, Netflix shares dropped following a downgrade by Bank of America. Shares had risen 10 percent the previous day after an upgrade by Morgan Stanley. Shares of Wells Fargo fell after the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara filed a civil lawsuit against the bank. The Department of Justice is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages for what it alleges was mortgage fraud at the bank. The dollar gained against the euro and the pound, but fell versus the yen. Light sweet crude oil for November delivery rose $3.06 to $92.39 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold futures lost $9.40 to $1,765 an ounce. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 110.12, or 0.81 percent, to 13,473.53. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 14.4, or 0.99 percent, to 1,441.48. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index fell 47.33, or 1.52 percent, to 3,065.02.
