Dow ends below 10,000 as euro slips

An investor talks on his mobile phone while standing in front of an electronic board displaying stock prices at the Karachi Stock Exchange May 25, 2010.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks and the euro ended lower on Wednesday, with the Dow closing below 10,000 for the first time since early February, after a report said China was reviewing its euro-zone debt holdings -- feeding investors' concerns that the European debt crisis could reverse the global economic recovery.

Gold prices rose about 1 percent, building its best three-day gain since January as dealers hedged against Europe's sovereign debt problems and took advantage of the desire for asset protection.

Stocks lost their day's gains late in New York session on investors' worries after Britain's Financial Times newspaper said China is reviewing its euro-zone bond holdings because of growing concern about gaping deficits in euro-zone member countries, including Greece and Portugal.

The Dow slipped below 10,000, with the late turnaround in stocks showing investor psyche is still fragile.

The euro slid 1.6 percent to $1.2169, close to a four-year low hit last week. The single European currency was stung by concerns about tighter dollar funding, with three-month dollar interbank rates hitting a fresh 10-month high. Poor demand at a German debt auction also weighed, analysts said.

Oil prices however, settled 4 percent higher, climbing back above $71 a barrel after a U.S. industry report showed a steep drop in gasoline stockpiles.

U.S. June gold futures ended at $1,213.40 an ounce, up 1.3 percent, or a gain on the day of $15.40.

"It is not as if the market needs new reasons to be bearish the euro, but the news that the market seems to be reacting to now is a Financial Times piece claiming, apparently without attribution, that China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) is reviewing its holdings of European bonds," Marc Chandler, global head of currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman in New York, said in a note.

UNDERSTANDING CHINA

Stock market investors were pushed by the FT report to take some profits, driving the Dow Jones industrial average .DJI to drop 69.30 points, or 0.69 percent, to close at 9,974.45.

The Standard & Poor's 500 Index .SPX fell 6.08 points, or 0.57 percent, to end at 1,067.95. The Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC lost 15.07 points, or 0.68 percent, to finish at 2,195.88.

"One rule that we have found is useful when trying to (put) one's head around China is that China does not leak. This would be, it seems, a leak. Therefore, while we suspect all investors must be thinking about what is happening in the euro zone, we don't see this as really news," Chandler added.

Concerns over European bank funding, specially after Spain took over a small savings bank, CajaSur, over the weekend, have pushed investors to take profits and buy into safe-haven assets.

In afternoon New York trading, the euro fell more than 1 percent to $1.2193/96, pulling back from a session low of $1.2182 set on electronic trading platform EBS. The euro hit a four-year low of $1.2143 on EBS last week and is down about 15 percent so far this year.

Earlier in the session, the euro took another dive on speculation a large Spanish bank has been struggling to roll over $1 billion in short-term funding in the U.S. commercial paper market.

A surge in U.S. durable good orders and new home sales for April had boosted U.S. stocks and overall risk sentiment earlier in the session, but did not help the euro.

In recent weeks, the euro has become a proxy for risk appetite, given Europe's debt crisis, rising or falling in tandem with global stocks.

"The overarching themes remain the same. The market is very fearful of the contagion factor and the debt issue dragging on the economy over there," said John Doyle, foreign exchange strategist at Tempus Consulting in Washington.

"We're still very bearish on the euro and very hawkish on the dollar. It does appear that the economies in the euro zone are in a much weaker position than here in the United States," he added.

EURO TALK

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner urged Europeans on Wednesday to work for a globally consistent approach to financial reform as the European Union said it might go it alone with a plan to tax banks to pay for future rescues.

European shares .FTEU3 rebounded by 2.5 percent from Tuesday's nine-month lows, but the euro remained under pressure amid continuing signs of banks' reluctance to lend to euro-zone counterparts exposed to southern European sovereign debt.

Geithner's stress on coordination of new regulation appeared aimed chiefly at Germany, Europe's biggest economy, which stunned markets and angered its European Union partners by unilaterally banning some speculative financial trades last week.

BONDS SLIP AFTER AUCTION

U.S. Treasuries prices fell on Wednesday, pulling benchmark yields up from one-year lows, as the week's $113 billion worth of government bond auctions weighed on a market that has rallied to rich levels recently.

Though the moves weren't dramatic, they suggested the market had become pricey after weeks of safe-haven flows into Treasuries and dollar assets as investors sought refuge from the euro zone's debt crisis.

Overall demand for Treasury's $40 billion five-year auction was a tad lower than last month and pricing suggested that dealers were somewhat aggressive in bidding prices lower to secure a yield premium.

The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note was down 9/32, with the yield at 3.1922 percent. The 2-year U.S. Treasury note was down 1/32, with the yield at 0.8172 percent. The 30-year U.S. Treasury bond was down 22/32, with the yield at 4.0956 percent.

(Reporting by Burton Frierson, Wanfeng Zhou and Chuck Mikolajczak; Writing by Manuela Badawy; Editing by Jan Paschal)