Stocks lost ground, capping an otherwise indecisive session. The Dow fell 3 points to 12,807. The S&P was down 2 points, while the Nasdaq lost 12 points.
- Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is giving Congress a little more breathing room to negotiate a deal that would raise the nation's borrowing limit. Geithner says he can delay an unprecedented default on the debt until Aug. 2, using a series of bookkeeping maneuvers to keep the government running. That's a month longer than previously said.
- After being rejected twice by the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq and IntercontinentalExchange have intensified their fight for the top U.S. stock market. Nasdaq OMX Group and IntercontinentalExchange say they are taking their unsolicited bid for the New York Stock Exchange directly to shareholders. They are starting an exchange offer to jointly acquire all of the outstanding shares of NYSE Euronext for $11 billion.
- Crude oil futures prices ended lower on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The near-month contract for the benchmark grade fell 41 cents, settling at $113.52 a barrel.
- Sony says it has taken down its online PC gaming service due to a problem it found while investigating the security breach at its PlayStation service last month. A spokesman says it's not due to a second attack.
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