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1st LD Writethru: U.S. stocks end mildly lower as Greece concerns grow

Xinhua, May 13, 2015 Adjust font size:

U.S. stocks reversed part of early losses to close modestly lower on Tuesday, as investors were pondering over impacts of the Greek debt crisis.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 36.94 points, or 0.20 percent, to 18,068.23. The S&P 500 decreased 6.21 points, or 0.29 percent, to 2,099.12. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 17.38 points, or 0.35 percent, to 4,976.19.

Market sentiment was affected by little progress on talks between cash-strapped Greece and its creditors. Eurozone finance ministers said more work is needed to close a cash-for-reform deal between both sides, even though Greece said on Monday it repaid about 750 million euros (847.5 million U.S. dollars) to the International Monetary Fund.

Analysts worried that Athens would eventually run out of cash and default on its debts.

European equities ended sharply lower Tuesday as bond markets sold off, with German benchmark DAX index at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange tumbling 1.72 percent.

On the economic front, U.S. job openings decreased to 4.99 million from February's revised level of 5.14 million, said the Labor Department Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the National Federation of Independent Business said its small-business optimism index rose 1.7 points to 96.9 in April, a decent month-over-month reading but overall still below the historical average.

In corporate news, Verizon Communications Inc. announced the signing of an agreement to purchase AOL Inc. for 50 dollars per share, an estimated total value of approximately 4.4 billion dollars.

AOL Inc., a global media and technology company, romped 18.62 percent to 50.52 dollars per share on the news Tuesday, while Verizon shares fell 0.36 percent to 49.62 dollars apiece.

Shares of Gap dropped 3.79 percent to 38.36 dollars apiece Tuesday after posting worse-than-expected quarterly results. For the first quarter of fiscal year 2015, the clothing retailer's net sales decreased 3 percent to 3.66 billion dollars, compared with 3. 77 billion dollars for the first quarter of last year. Endite