Wall Street lower at noon

Wall Street was down on Wednesday as investors expressed fears over missile tests conducted by North Korea as the United States celebrated Independence Day. At midday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had dropped 0.7 percent to 11,145.26, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 1.7 percent to 2,152.72 and the S&P 500 fell 0.9 percent to 1,268.94.

Miners were down and so was the steel sector. Among miners, Phelps Dodge dropped 1.9 percent to $82.05, while Freeport McMoran was down 4.3 percent to $56.00.

In the steel sector, US Steel declined by 3 percent to $68.08. Nucor was down 3.3 percent to $54.08.

Airlines saw gains on the release of new data on passenger traffic. Continental Airlines and Southwest Airlines each added 1.6 percent by mid-session on the news that passenger traffic had increased for both carriers in June. Continental was trading at $29.98, while Southwest was at $16.74.

McGraw Hill gained 2.1 percent to $51.39 after Citigroup upgraded the publisher of Business Week from “hold” to “buy”.

Pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly also got a boost as Goldman Sachs upgraded its shares from “in line” to “outperform”, adding 1.1 percent to $56.28.

The semiconductor sector, however, saw declines. Advanced Micro Devices dropped 1.3 percent to $24.28, while Intel declined by 2 percent to $18.98. Marvell Technology was down by 7.9 percent to $41.32 after it said that the Securities and Exchange Commission had asked it to supply documents concerning its practices surrounding the granting of stock options.

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