Stocks turn mixed as US manufacturing contracts









Stocks turned mixed on Wall Street Monday morning following an unexpected contraction in U.S. manufacturing last month.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 6 points to 13,032 as of 10:08 a.m. Eastern. The Standard and Poor's 500 was up 3 points to 1,418. The Nasdaq composite was up 8 points to 3,018. The Dow had been up as much as 62 points shortly after the opening bell.

U.S. manufacturing declined in November, a report from The Institute for Supply Management showed Monday. The ISM's index fell to 49.5 from 51.7 a month earlier. Any number below 50 on the scale means that manufacturing is contracting.

Investors are also looking for developments in budget talks. The White House and Congress are seeking to hammer out a deal that will avoid the “fiscal cliff,” a series of sharp government spending cuts and tax increases scheduled to start Jan. 1 unless an agreement is reached to cut the budget deficit. Stocks have fluctuated since the election on news of the talks.

In Europe, markets rose after Greece revealed plans to spend as much as (euro) 10 billion ($13 billion) in a bond buyback program intended to stabilize its mountainous debt. The buyback is part of efforts to reform Greece's moribund economy and reduce its debt to sustainable levels.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose 4 basis points to 1.65 percent.

Other stocks making big moves:

—Dell rose 76 cents to $10.41 percent after Goldman Sachs raised its rating to “Buy” from “Sell.” Goldman cited Dell's healthy cash balance and said a recent decline in the stock may have been overdone. Dell has slumped almost 30 percent this year on concern that consumers are migrating away from desktop PCs and laptops to portable devices such as tablets and phones.

—Supervalu jumped 19 cents to $2.56 following a report that private equity firm Cerberus is considering multiple options for buying parts of the struggling grocery store chain.

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