AlQa'dah 28, 1432, Oct 26, 2011, SPA - U.S. stocks finished lower on Tuesday, with all three major indexes falling over 1 percent, as investors prepared for a key summit on Europe's debt crisis. In world markets, European stocks ended lower, with the declines led by the CAC 40 in France falling 1.6 percent. Asian markets ended mixed, as the Shanghai Composite rose 1.7 percent and the Nikkei in Japan fell 1 percent. Investors are awaiting a European summit Wednesday, when government heads, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, have pledged to unveil a comprehensive plan to face the region's debt crisis. In U.S. economic news, consumer confidence fell sharply to 39.8 in October, reaching the lowest reading since March 2009, the Conference Board said. Economists were expecting the figure to remain steady at 46. Meanwhile, U.S. home prices rose for a fifth consecutive month in August, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index-a gauge of home prices across 20 major cities. Prices rose 0.2 percent during the month, but remained down 3.8 percent on a yearly basis. In Company news, British Petroleum (BP) shares rose after the oil company announced its profit rose to $4.9 billion in the third quarter. The profit was up from $1.8 billion in the year-prior quarter. The U.S. dollar rose versus the euro but fell versus the yen. Light sweet crude oil for December delivery rose $1.90 to $92.17 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold futures rose $48.10 to $1,700.40 an ounce. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 207, or 1.7 percent, to 11,706.62. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 25.14, or 2.0 percent, to 1,229.05. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index fell 61.02, or 2.26 percent, to 2,638.42.
