U.S. stocks finished lower on Tuesday. In world markets, European stocks ended mixed, as the FTSE 100 in Britain and the DAX in Germany both ended the session mostly unchanged, while the CAC 40 in France fell 0.7 percent. Asian markets ended higher, led by the Hang Seng in Hong Kong rising 1.3 percent. In U.S. economic news, the Commerce Department said new-home sales dropped to a rate of 312,000. The data were lower than the 325,000 units economists had predicted. A separate report showed home prices in major U.S. cities rose for the second straight month in May. The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home-price index said prices increased in 16 of the 20 cities tracked. Meanwhile, U.S. consumer confidence unexpectedly rose slightly in July, the Conference Board said. Its consumer-confidence index rose to 59.5 this month from 57.6 in June, which was a seven-month low. In U.S. company news, United Parcel Service (UPS), the world's largest package-delivery company, reported higher second-quarter profit. UPS posted net profit of $1.06 billion in the April-June period, up 26 percent from the $845 million reported a year earlier. It was the firm's highest second-quarter profit per share on record. The U.S. dollar fell versus the euro and versus the yen. Light sweet crude oil for September delivery rose 39 cents to $99.59 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold futures rose $4.60 to $1,616.80 an ounce. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 91.5, or 0.7 percent, to 12,501.30. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 5.49, or 0.4 percent, to 1,331.94. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index fell 2.84, or 0.1 percent, to 2,839.96.
