NEW YORK: US stock markets pared gains Monday after a newspaper report said that Germany and five other triple-A eurozone countries face the prospect of a credit downgrade.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average pulled back from triple-digit advances and rose 80.91 points (0.67 percent) to 12,100.33 in closing trade.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite added 28.40 points (1.08 percent) to 2,655.33, while the broader S&P 500-stock index advanced 12.83 points (1.03 percent) to 1,257.11.
US-based ratings firm Standard & Poor's was poised to announce later Monday that its was putting Germany, France, the Netherlands, Austria, Finland, and Luxembourg on "creditwatch negative" due to the deepening eurozone public debt crisis, the Financial Times reported.
S&P would not immediately confirm the report, but the news shook sentiment that had been buoyed by signs that Europe was taking steps to contain the growing sovereign debt crisis.
"The retreat came from a negative reaction to the notion that Europe's AAA-rated countries could face a downgrade from analysts at S&P," Briefing.com analysts said.
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