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8A Daily News – Wednesday, September 5, 2012 NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks zigged and zagged after reports that the U.S. economy is weakening at a time when China and Europe are also slowing. The Dow Jones indus- Stocks end mixed on weak US economic reports Wall Street trial average closed down 54.90 points at 13,035.94 on Tuesday. Heavy equip- ment maker Caterpillar was the weakest stock in the Dow average, slipping 3 percent, or $2.67, to $82.66. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 1.64 points to 1,404.94. The Nasdaq index bucked the losing trend, gaining 8.10 points at 3,075.06. A big reason was that the index's biggest stock, Apple, rose $9.73 to $674.97 after the company invited reporters to a news event next week at which it is expected to announce the long-await- ed iPhone 5. The market got off to a weak start after the Com- merce Department report- ed that U.S. construction spending fell 0.9 percent in July from June, driven lower by a sharp drop in spending on home improvement projects. a year, followed three months of gains powered by increases in home and apartment construction. New home construction rose again in July, but spending on home renova- tion projects fell 5.5 percent. A separate report The decline, the worst in delivered more gloomy news on the economy: the third straight month of contraction in U.S. manu- facturing. New orders, production and employ- ment all fell in August. Factories have been a key source of jobs and growth since the recession ended in June 2009, but the sec- tor has been weak in recent months. The Institute for Sup- ply Management, a trade group of purchasing man- agers for manufacturers, said its index of manufac- turing edged down to 49.6 from 49.7 in July. It was the lowest reading in three years. A reading below 50 indicates that manufactur- ing is contracting. ''It's time to go back to school and sharpen up on stocks and pay attention to the numbers,'' said Kim Forrest, equity ana- lyst at financial advisory firm Fort Pitt Capital Group. ''The numbers show that there's a lot of weakness out there and investors have gotten lulled into complacency in the last month or so.'' The week will culmi- nate with U.S. nonfarm payroll figures Friday, one of the most important barometers for the world's largest economy. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke has indi- cated that the central bank is inclined to provide new stimulus if it's needed. Despite the gloom, Americans continued to buy cars thanks to model- year closeouts, low-inter- est financing and appeal- ing new models. GM's August U.S. sales rose 10 percent compared with a year earlier, while Ford's rose 13 percent and Chrysler's 14 percent. Ford's stock rose 7 cents to $9.41. In Europe, Moody's warned that it could Mario Draghi, who is expected to announce details on Thursday of a new bond-buying pro- gram intended to bring down the borrowing costs of countries such as Spain and Italy. The price of oil also slipped on worries that demand would fall. U.S. benchmark crude fell $1.17 to $95.30 in New York. Among other stocks making big moves: — Netflix plunged $3.79 to $55.93, a loss of 6 percent. Rival Amazon signed a deal with a com- pany that licenses movies from Paramount, MGM and Lionsgate for its online streaming service. — Consol Energy fell 4.5 percent after the com- pany said it will temporar- ily idle a mine because of weak steel demand. The stock lost $1.37 to end at $28.83. downgrade the credit rat- ing of the European Union as a whole, citing the continent's lingering debt crisis. That sent mar- kets broadly lower in Europe. Benchmark indexes fell 1.2 percent in Germany, 1.6 percent in France and 1.5 percent in Britain. The focus this week will be on the European Central Bank President — Medicis Pharma- ceutical soared 38 per- cent. The company said it would be acquired by der- matology products maker Valeant Pharmaceuticals International. Medicis jumped $12.09 to $43.65. In southern La., residents blame levees for floods LAPLACE, La. (AP) — At the urging of resi- dents who have long felt forgotten in the shadow of more densely populated New Orleans, the Army Corps of Engineers says it will look into whether the city's fortified defenses pushed floodwaters pro- voked by Hurricane Isaac into outlying areas. However, the Corps has said it is unlikely scientif- ic analysis will confirm that theory, suggested not only by locals, but by some of the state's most C & C PROPERTIES 741 Main Street, Suite #2 Red Bluff, CA 96080 1-800-287-2187 (530) 527-2187 An Independently owned and operated Member of Coldwell Banker Residential Affiliates. 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Instead, weather experts say a unique set of cir- cumstances about the storm — not the flood- walls surrounding the New Orleans metro area — had more to do with flooding neighborhoods that in recent years have never been under water because of storm surge. Isaac was a large, slow- moving storm that wob- bled across the state's coast for about two and a half days, pumping water into back bays and lakes and leaving thousands of residents under water out- side the massive levee sys- tem protecting metropoli- tan New Orleans. It was blamed for seven deaths and damaged thousands of homes on the Gulf Coast. The Corps' study was prompted by the sugges- tion that Isaac's surge bounced off the levees and TATTOO FIRST LOVE New for Summer Fresh line of Accessories & Clothing 648 Main St. Downtown Red Bluff (530) 528-8288 floodgates built since Hur- ricane Katrina in 2005 and walloped communities outside the city's ram- parts. Blaming the Army Corps of Engineers is nothing new in southern Louisiana, a region that is both dependent on the Corps and by instinct dis- trustful of an agency that wields immense power in this world of harbors, wet- lands, rivers and lakes, all of which fall under the agency's jurisdiction. The Corps was roundly criticized after Hurricane Katrina, which pushed in enough water to break through the levees that had surrounded New Orleans. Much of the city was left under water, and since then the government has spent millions rebuild- ing the system of flood- walls protecting the metro area. was blamed for the unrav- eling of coastal marshes by erecting levees on the Mississippi River. In towns including the bedroom community of LaPlace, people want answers. There, commu- nities were under water even though they had never before flooded because of storm surge. Before that, the Corps tioning,'' said Ed Powell, a 47-year-old airport emergency worker who's lived in LaPlace for 15 years and had never seen flooding on his street until Isaac hit. ''It has a lot of us ques- David Vitter asked the Corps to commission an independent study to determine if the new floodwalls, gates and higher levees around greater New Orleans caused water to stack up elsewhere. On Friday, U.S. Sen. The Corps is expected to complete its study with- in two months, said U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D- La., who joined Vitter in calling for the study. The Corps said it was too early to say how much the study would cost. The agency said Corps researchers would conduct the study and that it will be peer- reviewed. Category 1 storm, but that classification is based on wind speed, not surge pre- dictions. In the past, much stronger storms have pro- duced much smaller surge levels. Isaac had a broad wind field — at times, more than 200 miles from its center — that made it capable of scooping up a lot of water, said James Franklin, the chief of hur- ricane operations at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. In a statement, the corps said it expects the study will find ''minimal'' changes in surge elevation because of its works around New Orleans. It based that assessment on previous modeling. The agency said it would not comment further until the scientific work is done. Isaac came ashore as a Really strong hurri- canes can sometimes pro- duce small surge levels while weaker hurricanes — ones like Isaac — can kick up massive surge. For example, in 2004, Hurri- cane Charley hit Florida as a compact Category 4 storm and produced a surge of only about 7 feet. By comparison, Isaac cre- ated storm surge of more than 6 feet at Lake Pontchartrain, according to U.S. Geological Survey sensors. It reached about 12 feet near Braithwaite, a community flooded to its rooftops in Plaquemines Parish. ''It was like scooping up water with a broad shovel rather than a pencil point,'' he said, comparing Isaac to a more compact storm like Charley.