Stocks Lower in Choppy Trading

U.S. Market
Stocks were lower this morning in choppy trading after Thursday’s massive sell-off.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury bond continued its march lower today hitting 2.311% as investors looked for safe havens. The 10-year started the week with a yield of 2.45%.

Import prices fell 0.5% in September from August levels. Prices were off 0.9% year-over-year. The decline was driven by a fall in petroleum prices and is another sign of muted inflationary pressures.

At midday the Dow was up 0.2%, the S&P 500 was down 0.1% while the Nasdaq fell 0.9%.

Stocks on the Move
Symantec (SYMC) officially announced it intends to separate into two independent, publicly traded companies late Thursday. One company, to be named Symantec, will sell security products and services, while the other company (which has yet to be named) will sell storage and information management (IM) products and services. Shares fell 3.8% on the news.

Shares of Darden (DRI) were down slightly after activist hedge fund Starboard Value said it has successfully elected its slate of 12 directors to the firm’s board. Starboard has been pressure Darden to make major changes to revamp its operations and unlock the value of the firm’s real estate.

Foreign Markets
European markets continued their slide on growth worries. The FTSE 100, Paris CAC and Germany’s DAX were down 1.3%, 1.6% and 2.4% respectively.

Asian shares were also lower. The Shanghai Composite was off 0.6%, the Nikkei 225 was down 1.2% while the Hang Seng dropped 1.9%.