Akhir 03, 1432, March 08, 2011, SPA -- U.S. stocks finished lower Monday. In U.S. economic news, consumer credit increased by $5 billion in January, according to a report by the Federal Reserve. In U.S. company news, technology stocks dragged after Wells Fargo downgraded the semiconductor sector Monday. Intel fell 1.6 percent and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dropped 2.33 percent. Meanwhile, Western Digital's stock rose 5.5 percent, after the company agreed to acquire Hitachi's hard disk drive business in a transaction valued at $4.3 billion. Seagate Technology, Western Digital's top rival, rose 9 percent after news of the deal. The U.S. dollar rose versus the euro but fell versus the yen. Light sweet crude oil for April delivery rose $1.02 to $105.44 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold futures rose $5.90 to $1,434.50 an ounce. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 79.85, or 0.7 percent, to 12,090.03. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 11.02, or 0.8 percent, to 1,310.013. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index fell 39.04, or 1.4 percent, to 2,745.63.
