Stocks erased most losses by Tuesday's close, with the Dow industrials losing only 22 points after having fallen nearly 300 points earlier in the session. Stocks have been declining for most of the month on worries about how the European debt crisis will impact global growth, and markets plunged in the first hour of trading Tuesday before recovering in the afternoon. Stocks are vulnerable following a big rally that propelled the Dow industrials 71 percent between the March 2009 lows and new highs hit in late April. In that same period, the broader Standard & Poor's 500 index gained 80 percent, and the technology-heavy Nasdaq gained 99 percent. In U.S. economic news, home prices fell 3.2 percent in the first quarter of this year, though they are up 2 percent from a year ago, according to a private index. A second private report showed consumer confidence rose sharply in May. The U.S. dollar gained 0.7 percent versus the euro and lost 0.4 percent versus the yen. Light sweet crude oil for July delivery fell $1.46 to $68.75 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold rose $4 to $1,198 an ounce. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 22.82, or 0.2 percent, to 10,043.75. The S&P 500 index was little changed, rising 0.38 to 1,074.03. And the Nasdaq composite index fell 2.60, or 0.1 percent, to 2,210.95.
