U.S. stocks declined, following a two-week advance in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, amid concern Europe’s debt crisis is deepening and after a Chinese central-bank adviser said growth may slow further.
The S&P 500 lost 1.1 percent to 1,347.49 at 9:31 a.m. New York time.
“Nothing is really fixed in Europe,” said John Manley, chief equity strategist for Wells Fargo Advantage Funds in New York. His firm oversees $201 billion. “The Spanish situation is chronic. And it’s not just Spain. This isn’t over.”
Stocks joined a global slump before the arrival in Athens tomorrow of Greece’s troika of international creditors -- the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. In Spain, Catalonia joined a list of regions that may tap aid from the central government. Spain’s 10-year yields surged above 7.5 percent for the first time.
Song Guoqing, an academic member of the People’s Bank of China monetary policy committee, predicted the nation’s expansion may cool to 7.4 percent this quarter.
He also warned that a decline in producer prices in tandem with consumer inflation may hurt investment returns of industrial companies.
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