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8A Daily News– Wednesday, May 23, 2012 Just how nervous are investors about Greece? All it took to derail a day of stock market gains was a headline saying that the country was preparing to leave the euro, an outcome many analysts expect to happen eventually. Major indexes were higher for most of the day after the National Associa- tion of Realtors reported that home prices surged 10 per- cent over the past year, the biggest gain in six years. Then, with less than an hour of trading left, news hit that Greece's former prime minister said the country was considering dropping the euro. Investors have been anticipating that Greece could make a messy exit from the euro this year, but the prospect that it could be imminent gave the mar- ket a jolt. NEW YORK (AP) — Dow Jones industrial aver- age turned into a 57-point loss in 45 minutes. A last- minute recovery left the A 50-point gain in the A late slide erases stock market gains Wall Street tacular, is nonetheless encouraging.'' Dow down just 1.67 points at 12,502.81. Facebook's stock kept sliding, dropping 9 percent to $31. The social network- ing company has fizzled since its long-awaited initial public offering last week at $38. Facebook sank 11 per- cent on Monday, even as the rest of the stock market ral- lied. In other trading, the Nas- daq composite dropped 8.13 points to 2,839.08. The Standard & Poor's 500 inched up 0.64 of a point to 1,316.63. It was up 12 points earlier in the day. The realtor group said sales of previously occupied homes rose 3.4 percent last month to an annual rate of 4.62 million, more than economists had predicted. The median price jumped to $177,400, the biggest gain since January 2006, before the real-estate bubble popped. ''Existing home sales is one of the most important indicators for the housing market,'' said Dan Green- haus, chief global strategist at the brokerage BTIG. ''The improvement in today's data, while not spec- PulteGroup, Lennar and other homebuilders gained more than 2 percent. S&P's homebuilder index has surged 38 percent this year, versus 4.7 percent for the S&P 500 index. In recent years, most ana- lysts considered the housing market a drag on the overall economy. Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, said Tuesday's report is more proof that housing is no longer an obstacle. It's ''not just healing'' he said, in a note to clients. Construc- tion has now contributed to economic growth for two straight quarters. Leaders of the 27 Euro- pean Union countries will meet in Brussels on Wednesday. The summit is expected to focus on ways to bolster the region's faltering economy and prevent a deeper financial crisis, though it's unlikely they'll produce any plans before Greece holds elections in June. big moves: Among stocks making — Urban Outfitters jumped 7 percent, the best gain in the S&P 500. The retailer posted earnings late Monday that surpassed Wall Street analysts' expectations on record sales. — Benihana soared 21 percent on news that the restaurant group's board agreed to a buyout from the private equity firm Angelo, Gordon & Co. Shareholders still need to sign off on the deal. — Ralph Lauren rose 3 percent. The clothing com- pany's quarterly earnings soared 29 percent, helped by strong sales and a lower tax rate. The company doubled its dividend to 40 cents per share. Google completes Motorola deal, heralding new era SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google has com- pleted its $12.5 billion pur- chase of device maker Motorola Mobility in a deal that poses new challenges for the Internet's most pow- erful company as it tries to shape the future of mobile computing. The deal closed Tuesday, nine months after Google Inc. made a surprise announcement that it want- ed to expand into the hard- ware business with the most expensive and riskiest acqui- sition in its 14-year history. 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