Qa'dah 15, 1431 / Oct. 23, 2010, SPA --Stocks finished mixed on Friday, as investors balanced strong U.S. corporate earnings against currency tensions at a summit of the world's major economies. The two-day group of 20 finance and central bank ministers meeting began Friday in South Korea, with tension about a so-called currency war rising. U.S. officials have been pushing China to allow its currency, the yuan, to rise against the dollar and level international exports. In a letter to the G-20 ministers, U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner urged some developing countries to stop keeping their currencies low, and to limit their surpluses or deficits to rebalance the world economy. Investors balanced strong earnings with increasing speculation that the Federal Reserve's next attempt to provide more quantitative easing through asset purchases of U.S. Treasuries will not be as dramatic as anticipated. In company news, shares of Verizon fell 1.6 percent after the company reported third-quarter earnings per share of 31 cents, down from 41 cents per share a year earlier. The U.S. dollar fell against the euro and the yen. Light sweet crude oil for December delivery rose $1.13 to $81.69 a barrel. Gold futures fell 50 cents to $1,325.10 an ounce. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 14.01, or 0.1 percent, to 11,132.56. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 2.82, or 0.2 percent, to 1,183.08. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index rose 19.72, or 0.8 percent, to 2,479.39. Shares of AIG rose 0.4 percent after reports said the company sold its Asian life insurance unit (AIA) for $17.8 billion in a share offering early Friday. AIG said that it considers the sale of AIA to be important to its efforts to repay the aid it took from the U.S. government.
