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Global stocks were steady Wednesday ahead of a raft of U.S. economic figures which will culminate in the key monthly jobs data at the end of the week, while the euro held on to recent gains on hopes Greece will get more help with its debts.

At the start of each month, investors have a slew of U.S. economic indicators to digest, in particular the monthly nonfarm payrolls data, which often set the tone in markets for a week or two after their release.

Before Friday’s payrolls data, traders will on Wednesday focus on the May manufacturing survey from the Institute for Supply Management. The main index is expected to drop to around 57 from the previous month’s 60.4, providing further evidence that the U.S. recovery is slowing down.

Concerns over the U.S. economic recovery and Europe’s debt crisis, particularly whether Greece will get more emergency loans, have dominated market attention over recent weeks.

The May survey from the private payrolls firm ADP could also shed some light on whether Friday’s government data, which also includes the public sector, will come in line with expectations.

Adrian Foster, an analyst at Rabobank International, is expecting the ADP report to show 175,000 jobs added in May, little changed on the previous month’s 179,000.

“Such a result will likely calm nerves as we look to Friday’s payrolls report,” Foster said.

At the moment, the consensus in the markets is that Friday’s government data will show that around 200,000 jobs were added during May, slightly down on April’s 244,000 increase.

Ahead of the U.S. figures later, Wall Street futures and stocks in Europe were trading in narrow ranges.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was down 0.1 percent at 5,987 while Germany’s DAX fell an equivalent rate to 7,287. The CAC-40 in France was flat at 4,007.

A similarly steady opening is expected when the U.S. opens for business _ Dow futures were down 0.1 percent at 12,552 while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 futures were unchanged at 1,344.

The ADP data, which are released before the bell, could change expectations for the open though. The ISM survey is released half an hour into the trading session.

“The ADP numbers ahead of the open will attract some interest with some using it as a proxy to second guess Friday’s nonfarm payrolls, but with that event looming over markets, and considering the strong gains made on Tuesday, we may be in for a couple of quiet, range days,” said Yusuf Heusen, a senior sales trader at IG Index.

Currency markets were also subdued, with the euro down 0.1 percent at $1.4413 and the dollar down an equivalent rate to 81.25 yen.

The euro, which suffered in April on fears over Greece’s debt, has recovered strongly over the past days on mounting expectations that Greece will get more help from its partners in the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund to meet financing commitments through to 2013. Alongside a second rescue package following last year’s euro110 billion package of loans, Greece is expected to have to increase its privatization program and make more austerity cuts.

Few analysts, however, think that a second rescue package would necessarily prevent a Greek debt restructuring down the line given weak economic growth forecasts and political infighting.

“We remain sceptical that the modest rebound in risk sentiment over the past week will prove sustainable beyond the near-term especially any renewed optimism regarding Greece where a rehash of previously unsuccessful support steps will likely fail again,” said Lee Hardman, a currency strategist at the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ.

Earlier in Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.3 percent to close at 9,719.61 after Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa said in a speech that supply and electricity disruptions caused by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami were easing. The economy could stage a moderate recovery starting in the second half of fiscal 2011, he said.

Elsewhere, South Korea’s Kospi index slipped less than 0.1 percent to 2,141.34 after the government announced the country’s inflation rate eased for a second straight month in May, to 4.1 percent.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index drifted 0.2 percent lower to 23,626.43 while mainland China’s Shanghai Composite Index dropped 0.3 percent after data showed China’s manufacturing sector easing in April. The state-affiliated China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing reported that its purchasing managers index, or PMI, fell to 52.9 in April, down from 53.4 in March.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 failed to hold onto gains and closed flat at 4,707.30.

In the oil markets, the price of crude continued to hover around the $100 a barrel mark. Benchmark oil for July delivery was down 10 cents to $102.58 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange after a $2 plus gain on Tuesday.

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Pamela Sampson in Bangkok contributed to this report.

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Housings starts in the U.S. unexpectedly fell in April as flooding and tornadoes in the South shut down construction sites and homebuilders continued to struggle almost two years into an economic recovery.

Work began on 523,000 houses at an annual pace, down 11 percent from the prior month and less than the 569,000 median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, figures from the Commerce Department showed today in Washington. Building permits, a sign of future construction, also decreased.

Falling home values and the prospect of more foreclosures entering the market mean home construction will be slow to gain traction. Unemployment at 9 percent and stagnant wages indicate any recovery in housing may take years to unfold.

“Job growth is essential to household formation and to keep home prices from falling further,” said Eric Green, chief market economist at TD Securities Inc. in New York, who forecast permits at 550,000. “I don’t see home sales doing much of anything” for the foreseeable future.

Another report today showed industrial production unexpectedly stalled in April, reflecting a temporary drop in auto making after supplies of parts were disrupted by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, according to data from the Federal Reserve. Output was unchanged after a 0.7 percent gain in March, figures from the Federal Reserve showed. Manufacturing fell 0.4 percent, the report showed.

Treasuries Rise

Treasury securities rose after the reports as the slowdown in construction and manufacturing gives Federal Reserve policy makers reason to keep interest rates low. The yield on the benchmark 10-year note, which moves inversely to prices, fell to 3.12 percent at 10:09 a.m. in New York from 3.15 percent late yesterday. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 0.4 percent to 1,324.51.

Housing starts estimates ranged from 500,000 to 600,000 in the Bloomberg survey of 74 economists.

The Commerce Department revised March’s total to a 585,000 pace, up from a previously estimated 549,000. Starts reached a record low 477,000 pace in April 2009.

Building permits fell 4 percent to a 551,000 annual pace in April. They were projected to rise 0.9 percent to a 590,000 level, according to the survey median.

Construction of single-family houses decreased 5.1 percent to a 394,000 rate in April from the prior month. Work on multifamily homes, such as townhouses and apartments, fell 24 percent to an annual rate of 129,000, the weakest so far this year.

Plunge in South

Starts dropped in two of four regions, led by a 23 percent decrease in the South, the largest area. They fell 4.8 percent in the Northeast and climbed 16 percent in the Midwest and 3.7 percent in the West.

All of the weakness in starts was due to the plunge in the South, reflecting flooding on the Mississippi River that continued into May, Morgan Stanley economists David Greenlaw and Ted Wieseman wrote in a note to clients today. They forecast starts to show “little increase” this year.

Last month was the 10th wettest April since record-keeping began in 1895, with 875 preliminary reports of tornados, a record for any month, according to the National Climatic Data Center. Most wind damage occurred from the southern and central plains to the Atlantic coast.

Confidence among U.S. homebuilders was little changed in May, restrained by a drop in the sales outlook, a report from the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo showed yesterday. The group’s sentiment index held at 16 for a second month. Figures less than 50 mean more respondents view conditions as poor.

Existing-Home Sales

Sales of existing homes, which make up more than 90 percent of the market, rose 2 percent to a 5.2 million annual pace in April, economists surveyed by Bloomberg forecast the National Association of Realtors may report on May 19. Purchases of previously owned houses have been increasing on demand for lower-priced distressed homes.

CoreLogic Inc. in March estimated about 1.8 million homes were delinquent or in foreclosure, a so-called “shadow inventory” set to add to the 3.5 million existing homes already on the market.

Toll Brothers Inc. Chief Executive Officer Douglas Yearley Jr. last week said the April through June home selling season, typically the busiest of the year, has been “disappointing” and that “people are still scared.”

Demand for new houses will remain weak into 2012, said Bill Wheat, chief financial officer of D.R. Horton Inc., who last week also projected a housing recovery will take time to develop.

Jeffrey Mezger, chief executive officer of Los Angeles- based KB Home (KBH), said he expects sales to “bump along for the next 18 months.”

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In early April, the Canadian Online Insurance Marketplace Kanetix reported that car insurance rates in Ontario increased by 6.7 per cent over the last year. The multi-million dollar business of auto insurance fraud is a key factor driving up premiums in this province. 

A recent Ontario investigation called Project 92 teamed insurance company investigators with law enforcement officers and two dedicated crown prosecutors. More than 50 staged collisions were investigated, with 300 charges laid, 22 individuals convicted and two people jailed.

Rick Dubin, the Insurance Bureau of Canada

South African retail sales growth unexpectedly slowed in February as rising prices curtailed consumer spending.

Sales growth dropped to 5.6 percent from a revised 6.3 percent in January, Pretoria-based Statistics South Africa said on its website today. The median estimate of 16 economists surveyed by Bloomberg was 7.1 percent.

“The prospects of higher food, petrol and electricity prices, along with rising rates and taxes, could constrain” retail spending, Kgotso Radira, an economist at Investec Ltd. in Johannesburg, said in a note to clients before today’s data.

Inflation accelerated to a nine-month high of 4.1 percent in March as food and fuel prices climbed, the statistics agency said earlier today. The Reserve Bank cut its benchmark interest rate three times to 5.5 percent last year to help support the economy’s recovery. The bank left the rate unchanged on March 24, as price pressures increased and growth picked up pace.

Pick n Pay Stores Ltd. (PIK), South Africa’s second-biggest grocer, said April 18 that sales rose 5.9 percent to 51.9 billion rand in the year through February. Foschini Ltd., a clothing retailer, said on the same day that its per-share earnings for the year through March were expected to be from 19 percent to 22 percent higher than the previous year. Both companies are based in Cape Town.

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The head of a Senate panel investigating the financial crisis is questioning the accuracy of testimony Goldman Sachs executives gave to Congress last year about whether the firm steered investors toward mortgage securities it knew would likely fail.

Goldman Sachs and Co. agreed in July to pay $550 million to settle civil fraud charges over similar accusations.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said Wednesday the subcommittee has found new evidence that shows Goldman’s misleading of investors went beyond that one case. He raised doubts about the testimony given last year by a half-dozen Goldman executives. Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein was among those who testified.

Goldman spokesman Michael DuVally said the testimony given by the executives was “truthful and accurate” and that the subcommittee’s report confirms that.

The report released Wednesday notes that Goldman marketed four sets of complex mortgage securities to banks and other investors. But it says the firm failed to tell them that the securities were very risky, secretly bet against the investors’ positions and deceived the investors about its own positions to shift risk from its balance sheet to theirs.

At the hearing last year by the Senate panel, Goldman executives were questioned about the deals. Company e-mails showed Goldman employees deriding the securities as “junk” and “crap.”

Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein said the company didn’t bet against its clients, and couldn’t survive without their trust. The company lost $1.2 billion in the mortgage meltdown in 2007 and 2008 that touched off the financial crisis and the worst recession since the 1930s, Blankfein testified. He also insisted that Goldman wasn’t making an aggressive negative bet _ or short _ on the mortgage market’s slide.

The company’s short positions were mostly offset by long holdings of the securities, the executives said at the hearing.

The new subcommittee report cites internal Goldman documents that it says contradict that assertion.

“I believe they misled the Congress,” Levin told reporters. Goldman “gained at the expense of their clients and they used abusive practices to do it,” he said.

DuVally, the Goldman spokesman, said that while the company disagrees with many of the report’s conclusions, “We take seriously the issues explored by the subcommittee online payday loan lenders. We recently issued the results of a comprehensive examination of our business standards and practices, and committed to making significant changes.”

Goldman agreed last summer to pay $550 million to settle civil fraud charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission of misleading buyers of mortgage-related securities. The agreement applied to one of the four deals cited by the Senate subcommittee.

The report culminates a two-year investigation by the panel, which examined millions of documents and interviewed scores of executives, traders and salespeople.

It portrays “a financial snake pit rife with greed, conflicts of interest and wrongdoing,” Levin said.

The panel cited four key areas of causes of the financial crisis:

_Risky mortgage lending as exemplified by Washington Mutual, which became the biggest U.S. bank ever to fail in September 2008.

_The failure of regulators to clamp down on lending abuses and risky conduct at banks in the years leading up to the housing bust and financial crisis.

_The AAA ratings given by the big credit rating agencies to high-risk subprime mortgages that later went bad and helped cause the housing bust.

_The role of investment banks like Goldman Sachs and the finance deals they put together, which flooded the markets with risky securities.

The report also urges federal regulators to make several changes, such as a strong ban on conflicts of interest for investment banks and other financial players. It says the financial overhaul law enacted last year in response to the crisis could help prevent future abuses.

“At the heart of the financial crisis were unresolved, and often undisclosed, conflicts of interest,” Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, the panel’s top Republican. “Blame for this mess lies everywhere from federal regulators who cast a blind eye, Wall Street bankers who let greed run wild, and members of Congress who failed to provide oversight.”

Levin said the panel planned to convey findings to the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission for possible further investigation.

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From the time he was a child, Steven Bolduc knew he wanted to be an entrepreneur.

More than being his own boss, he also wanted to create something that could help his own community.

Originally from the Fort William First Nation near Thunder Bay, Bolduc grew up both on and off reserve, and ended up spending his teenage years in Hamilton.

Armed with two degrees from Brock University and University of Windsor, he worked as a procurement officer for Fortune 500 companies. He squirreled away his money before buying a Print Three franchise in RBC Plaza in 2008, launching the Aboriginal Printing Corp.

Bolduc, 40, who loves graphic design, decided the printing was the way to go.

Spain sold 4.13 billion euros ($5.9 billion) of three-year bonds and its borrowing costs fell after Portugal said it would seek a European Union bailout.

Spain sold the bonds at an average yield of 3.568 percent, compared with 3.592 percent when it sold debt of similar maturity on March 3, the Treasury said. Demand was 1.79 times the amount offered, compared with 3.04 times on March 3, and the amount sold compared with a maximum target of 4.5 billion euros.

The debt sale, hours after Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates said he would ask the European Union for financial help, was a test of investor sentiment as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said contagion from the sovereign debt crisis would stop at Portugal. Spain, in an attempt to distance itself from other so- called peripheral nations, is implementing the deepest budget cuts in at least three decades while trying to shore up savings banks suffering a surge in bad loans.

“The fact that Portugal seeks help early reduces contagion risk,” Mohit Kumar, a fixed-income strategist at Deutsche Bank AG in London, said by telephone. “The bonds have performed very well; any decline in Spanish bonds in the near-term is likely to come from their rich valuation rather than contagion concern.”

Yield Spread

The gap between Spanish and German 10-year borrowing costs was unchanged from yesterday after the sale at 180 basis points. That compares with a euro-era record of 298 basis points on Nov. 30 after Ireland became the second euro nation after Greece to seek a bailout. Spanish banking stocks rose, with Banco Santander SA (SAN) gaining 2 percent.

“We do not expect any other EMU sovereign to be in need of financial assistance,” Francesco Garzarelli, Goldman Sachs’s London-based chief interest-rate strategist, said in a report to clients payday loans. He expects the spreads between the yields of Italy, Spain, Belgium and those of AAA-rated economies like Germany to “slowly compress,” he said.

Bank of Spain Governor Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordonez said on March 5 that Portugal isn’t “very important” for Spanish banks. Spain has foreign claims amounting to $85 billion in Portugal, according to data from the Basel-based Bank of International Settlements. Portugal accounted for 9 percent of Spain’s global exports in 2010, according to Spanish Industry Ministry data.

Spain has overhauled labor and pension laws and pledged further measures to make its economy more competitive. It aims for a budget deficit of 6 percent of gross domestic product this year, compared with 9 percent last year when the shortfall was the third-largest in the euro region.

‘Right Things’

“Contagion to Spain will be extremely limited,” Guillaume Menuet, senior European economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said in a telephone interview. “Spain has been doing all the right things and ticking all the boxes.”

Spain also adopted austerity measures including public-wage cuts earlier than Portugal’s Socialist Premier Socrates, who resigned on March 23 after failing to get parliamentary approval for his proposed budget cuts. Elections are scheduled in Portugal for June 5, making the negotiation of any EU bailout more difficult.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has pledged to complete his four-year term. He announced on April 2 he won’t seek re-election, unleashing a leadership battle in the ruling Socialist Party after regional elections on May 22.

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Japan’s business confidence fell after last month’s tsunami disaster and the ensuing nuclear crisis, and manufacturers were feeling more pessimistic about the economy, the central bank said Monday.

The Bank of Japan’s closely watched “tankan” survey of business sentiment showed the main index for large manufacturers slumped to 6 after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, down from 7 before the disasters.

The index of sentiment among big manufacturers in the next three months tumbled to minus 2 from 6. That among small-and mid-sized manufacturers in the coming three months also plummeted to minus 18 from minus 6.

The tankan figure represents the percentage of companies saying business conditions are good minus those saying conditions are unfavorable, with 100 representing the best mood and minus-100 the worst.

The central bank released a post-quake version of its March tankan survey to reflect the impact of the disasters and the nuclear crisis they spawned on the country’s business sentiment.

“The results underscored growing worries among all manufactures after the tsunami,” said Yoko Takeda, an economist at Mitsubishi Research Institute Inc. “Some companies lost their factories in the tsunami, while many others were forced to shut down production due to massive disruptions in supply chains.”

Last month’s magnitude-9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami decimated much of northern Japan, killing up to 25,000 people. More than 12,000 are confirmed dead, and another 15,500 are missing.

The March 11 disaster also destroyed many plants in the region, forcing a string of companies, including Toyota Motor Corp. and Sony Corp., to suspend output due to a shortage in components.

The quake and tsunami also damaged Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s nuclear plant in Fukushima, forcing it to cut its daily power supply in Tokyo and its environs. Power shortages forced many factories to suspend output.

The tsunami-wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant has continued to spew radiation which has made its way into vegetables, raw milk, tap water in Tokyo, and now the ocean.

Japan’s government has said the cost of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the northeast could reach $309 billion, making it the world’s most expensive natural disaster on record.

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President Barack Obama offered to cut another $6.5 billion in government spending, a proposal rejected as inadequate by Republicans in negotiations over the federal budget and avoiding a government shutdown.

Michael Steel, House Speaker John Boehner’s spokesman, yesterday called the Obama proposal “little more than the status quo,” and said, “The American people have been clear that status quo spending in Washington is simply unacceptable.”

Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, was similarly dismissive, saying the Obama offer would “pay for two months of interest on the stimulus bill.”

House Republicans last month passed a plan to cut $61 billion from 2011 spending, which would mean reductions of 10 percent or more in hundreds of programs. Democrats, who control the Senate, have balked at that measure.

White House National Economic Policy Director Gene Sperling told reporters yesterday, “We are willing to cut spending further if we can agree on cuts and find common ground in a way that does not do harm to the economy in the short term or in the long term through gutting education, research, innovation — things that are critical to winning our economic future.” He didn’t identify which programs would be cut.

Congressional leaders of both parties met behind closed doors yesterday with Vice President Joseph Biden to begin negotiations. Afterward, Biden issued a statement saying “the conversation will continue.”

Attending the meeting with Biden were the four top congressional leaders — Boehner, of Ohio, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, and McConnell, a Kentucky Republican — as well as White House officials including Budget Director Jack Lew and Obama’s chief of staff, William Daley.

Stopgap Funding

Obama signed a stopgap measure March 2 that cuts spending this year by $4 billion while funding most of the government at current budget levels until March 18. That gives lawmakers two weeks to decide funding levels for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 or risk a shutdown.

Democrats have said extending current budget levels through Sept. 30 would amount to $41 billion in savings when compared with the 2011 budget request Obama released last year.

Sperling argued that combined with $4 billion cut in the stopgap measure and the $6.5 billion spending decrease administration now was offering, the total would amount to roughly half of the $100 billion Republicans had pledged last year to cut from the president’s 2011 budget request payday loan.

That request never advanced in last year’s Congress and the government has continued to be funded at 2010 levels.

‘Unacceptable’

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a Virginia Republican, rejected the Democrats’ math. “That’s unacceptable to our side,” he said. “It’s unacceptable to the American people.”

Cantor said his colleagues want the equivalent of $2 billion in cuts per week through Sept. 30. That would track with the $61 billion in cuts sought by the House bill.

White House spokesman Dan Pfeiffer said before the meeting Biden convened that “while there may be some disputes on math and some other things heading into this, we remain optimistic we’re going to be able to get this done.”

McConnell said that in the Senate version of a budget bill he would seek the $61 billion in cuts approved by the House, though he hasn’t endorsed that measure’s specific cuts. The bill’s provisions include spending reductions in programs affecting education, the environment, health care, energy, science and the arts. The Peace Corps budget would be cut by 20 percent and the maximum Pell college tuition grant would be slashed by 15 percent.

Some Senate Republicans say they won’t vote for any budget bill that contains less than the $61 billion in cuts. “I can’t under any circumstances vote for anything less than that,” said South Carolina Republican Jim DeMint.

Policy Disputes

The negotiations also must resolve a number of policy measures approved by the House, including a ban on funds for Obama’s health-care overhaul and for Planned Parenthood, which provides abortions. Democrats want those provisions deleted.

Some Democratic lawmakers said they don’t want to focus on spending cuts until Congress considers ways of raising more federal revenues through taxes, such as increases on those earning more than $250,000 a year or ending breaks for oil and gas companies.

“I’m not going to vote for anything unless there’s revenues in it,” said Senator Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat. “From now on, if there’s something that’s just cutting spending, I’m not for it. We’ve got to do both.”

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World stock markets were higher Friday as oil prices eased and Wall Street stabilized after two days of sharp losses amid a political revolt threatening to topple the government of OPEC-member Libya.

Oil prices hovered above $98 a barrel in Asia _ down from $103 the previous day _ after experts said the crisis in Libya may have cut crude supplies less than previously estimated. In currencies, the dollar was higher against the yen and narrowly up against the euro.

European bourses bounded upward in early trading as investors shook off caution over the events in Libya.

Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.4 percent to 5,940.75. Germany’s DAX was up 0.2 percent to 7,143.40 and the CAC-40 in Paris rose 0.3 percent to 4,021.59. Wall Street was set to gain, with Dow Jones industrial futures 0.4 percent higher to 12,080 and S&P 500 futures up 0.3 percent to 1,306.80.

Key indexes in Asia closed higher after struggling early in the day to find direction.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 stock average rose 0.7 percent to close at 10,526.76 and South Korea’s Kospi also added 0.7 percent, to 1,963.43. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index jumped 1.8 percent to 23,012.37 and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was 0.6 percent higher at 4,836.50.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index was virtually unchanged at 2,878.57, and down 0.7 percent for the week, while the Shenzhen Composite Index edged up less than 0.1 percent to 1,280.30 in lackluster trading.

Huaxin Cement Co., which has seen strong gains recently on expectations of sustained strong demand for construction materials, hit the daily upward limit of 10 percent.

“With the annual session of the national legislature beginning next week, shares are trending with forecasts for the government’s plans. Since the government plans to build more than 10 million low-cost housing units, cement companies saw strong gains,” said Peng Yunliang, an analyst at Shanghai Securities in Shanghai.

Toyota Motor Corp. ended 2.1 percent higher. U.S. investigators closed an investigation into the Japanese automaker after it agreed to recall another 2.7 million vehicles to address accelerator pedals that could become trapped in floor mats or jammed in driver’s side carpeting. That satisfied the Transportation Department that Toyota’s recalls for pedal entrapment were sufficient.

Airline stocks that had sagged after the spike in the cost of crude regained their stride after the International Energy Agency said the rebellion in Libya may have cut oil production less than originally feared. Saudi Arabia also pledged to increase production to make up for any shortfalls. Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. jumped 3.6 percent, Korean Air Lines vaulted 4.8 percent, and Qantas Airways Ltd. rose 2.1 percent.

But analysts cautioned that the end of the crisis was not yet in sight and that prices will likely spiral upward.

“I think oil prices are going to trade higher, even with Saudi assurances. I think OPEC wants to see higher oil prices,” said Tom Kaan of Louis Capital Markets in Hong Kong. “I am not optimistic on airlines or the transport sector.”

“Oil is pretty much unpredictable, but in the short term, I do not see oil trading back at $85 a barrel. I think the floodgates are open for oil prices” and they could go as high as $120, Kaan said.

Meanwhile, New Zealand’s benchmark retreated 0.1 percent three days after an earthquake in the second-largest city of Christchurch killed at least 113 people.

In New York on Thursday, investors were relieved to see oil prices fall for the first time in nine days.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 37.28 points, or 0.3 percent, to 12,068.50. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 1.30, or 0.1 percent, to 1,306.10. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.6 percent to 2,737.90.

The nation’s gross domestic product rose at a 3.2 percent annual rate in the October-December quarter. The U.S. Commerce Department will update its fourth-quarter estimate later Friday. Economists think the figure will be revised up slightly to 3.3 percent.

In currencies, the dollar rose to 81.94 from 81.77 yen late Thursday. The euro slipped slightly to $1.3802 from $1.3807 following a sharp rise over the past 10 days.

Analysts said the gains in previous days were probably due to expectations that European interest rates would be raised before Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke does the same in the U.S. Higher rates typically support a currency’s value.

Benchmark crude for April delivery was up $1 to $98.28 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 82 cents to settle at $97.28 a barrel on Thursday.

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