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U.S. stocks ended flat Tuesday, after turning sharply lower during the final hour of trading amid fears that Greece will leave the eurozone.

About an hour before the closing bell, reports surfaced that former Greek prime minister Lucas Papademos told Dow Jones Newswires that Greece is considering making preparations to leave the eurozone.

The euro sank on the news, falling more than 1% against the dollar, and pulled stocks down with it.

Earlier, strong U.S. housing data boosted stocks.

"Investors were able to concentrate on what was happening in the U.S., said Kim Forrest, senior equity analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group. "But I guess Greece came back with a vengeance."

Greece: Top 3 risks facing U.S.

After being up almost 1% earlier in the day, the S&P 500 () sank as much as 0.5%. The broad index managed to recover by the closing bell, finishing the day up less than 1 point, or 0.1%.

The Dow Jones industrial average () and Nasdaq () also tumbled following the Greek news. Both indexes bounced back from their lowest levels of the day but still finished in the red. The Dow slipped 2 points for the day, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 8 points, or 0.3%.

Investors will continue to focus on developments out of Europe.

The region’s leaders are due to meet Wednesday in an ad hoc summit to address the latest problems with European sovereign debt, worries that Greece is moving closer to leaving the eurozone, and the contagion effects an exit might have on other economies.

U.S. stocks bounced back from their worst week of the year Monday, on renewed optimism that European leaders would find a way out of the sovereign debt crisis.

Economy: Following the opening bell, the National Association of Realtors said that existing home sales rose 3.4% in April to an annual rate of 4.62 million, up 10% year-over-year. Home affordability also came in at record levels.

"These sales levels are still relatively low, but a home is a big ticket item, and to see improvement in the housing market is always good," said Forrest. "It shows that buyers think their prospects are solid enough to agree to a mortgage."

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development cut its forecasts for the eurozone economy to a decline of 0.1% this year, and warned that sovereign debt problems pose a risk to the global economic recovery.

World markets: A report showing ebbing inflation in the United Kingdom raised hopes that lower price pressures might allow leaders to move toward more stimulus to respond to economic weakness.

European stocks ended higher. Britain’s FTSE 100 () rose 1.9%, while the DAX () in Germany gained 1.7% and France’s CAC 40 () jumped 2.2%.

Fitch downgraded Japan, the world’s No. 3 economy, and suggested further downgrades could be coming.

Asian markets ended before the Japan downgrade was announced. The Shanghai Composite () rose 1.0%, the Hang Seng () in Hong Kong gained 0.6% and Japan’s Nikkei () climbed 1.1%.

Companies: Bank stocks were among the biggest gainers Tuesday, with shares of JPMorgan Chase (, Fortune 500) rising almost 5%. Bank of America (, Fortune 500) and Citigroup (, Fortune 500) rose more than 2%, while Morgan Stanley (, Fortune 500) and Goldman Sachs (, Fortune 500) added about 1%.

Best Buy (, Fortune 500), which has been hit by a scandal that cost the CEO his job, along with store closings during the most recent quarter, reported solid earnings even as same-store sales fell 5.3%. The retailer also reaffirmed its earnings guidance of $3.50 to $3.80 a share, excluding restructuring charges. Analysts are only looking for earnings of $3.58 a share this year.

AutoZone (, Fortune 500) also reported better than expected earnings of $6.28 a share, but weaker than expected revenue sent its shares lower.

Williams Sonoma () reported earnings per share of 34 cents excluding special items, which came in better than forecasts and year-earlier results. The retailer raised its earnings guidance for 2012.

Shares of Urban Outfitters () popped after the retailer topped earnings expectations.

Polo Ralph Lauren’s (, Fortune 500) stock also edged up after the company’s profit rose 29% on strong revenue and same-store sales growth. The company also doubled its quarterly dividend. But the company’s revenue guidance for fiscal 2013 came in below expectations.

Shares of Dell (, Fortune 500) tumbled in after-hours trading Tuesday after the computer maker posted a profit that was below Wall Street’s expectations, and also issued a disappointing forecast for the second quarter, amid weak PC sales.

Currencies and commodities: The euro sank on the Greek news, falling more than 1% against the dollar. Earlier it was only off between 0.5% and 0.7%.

Oil for July delivery fell $1.38 to settle at $91.48 a barrel.

Gold futures for June delivery fell $22.10 to settle at $1,566.60 an ounce.

Bonds: The price on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury slid, pushing the yield up to 1.79% from 1.74% late Monday.  

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Investors are bracing for Facebook’s Wall Street debut on Friday after the pioneering online social network raised about $16 billion in one of the biggest initial public offerings in U.S. history.

More: Why you should resist buying Facebook on its first day of trading

More: Facebook IPO: How long will the euphoria last?

To rapturous applause from employees, Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg rang the bell to kick off trading on the Nasdaq market at the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time.

Shares in Facebook begin publicly trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange for the first time Friday at 11:00 a.m., at an opening price of $38 US. Follow our live blog as The Star covers the social networking giant’s historic first trading day, including analysis and reaction.

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The free credit score industry has been booming since the recession as a lot of people hit hard times and want to keep an eye on how the recession has affected their credit standing.

The percentage of borrowers who have dropped behind on their mortgage payments fell to a four-year low in the first three months of 2012, a bankers’ group said Wednesday.

The Mortgage Bankers Association said Wednesday that the percentage of loans delinquent or already in the foreclosure process during the first quarter was 11.33%, the lowest level since 2008. That was a decrease of 1.2 percentage points from a quarter earlier and 0.98 percentage point below the rate 12 months earlier.

"Delinquencies are clearly continuing to improve," said Michael Fratantoni, the MBA’s vice president for research and economics.

Another hopeful sign is the falling percentage of borrowers who are just getting into trouble, ones who have missed one payment. That’s useful for predicting the more seriously delinquencies to come.

"Newer delinquencies, loans one payment past due as of March 31, are down to the lowest level since the middle of 2007, indicating fewer new problems we will need to deal with in the future," said Fratantoni.

These new delinquencies represented 3.1% of loans outstanding, according to Jay Brinkmann, the MBA’s chief economist. That matches the long-term historical average of 3.1% going back to the 1990s, he said.

"Basically, we’re back to normal on that count," he said.

One factor that has slowed the healing is the continued difficulty lenders face moving foreclosures through the pipeline, especially in states that involve the courts in the foreclosure process guaranteed online payday loans.

In the so-called judicial states, 6.9% of loans are in foreclosure inventory, loans that the banks have begun the legal process of foreclosing on but have not yet taken control of the property through a foreclosure sale.

In non-judicial states, where foreclosures are handled by trustees such as title companies, only 2.9% of loans are in foreclosure inventory.

The difference is mostly the speed that banks can move defaults through the system, said Brinkmann.

Bank of America offering up to $30,000 for short sales

One way banks have started to reduce foreclosures is that they are now encouraging short sales, the deals in which borrowers sell their homes for less than what the owe, leaving the banks to absorb the losses.

That can also move delinquent borrowers out of the homes more quickly.

Banks also know that short sales are less costly to them than foreclosures, in which expenses such as property taxes, insurance and maintenance can mount up. In addition, homes repossessed in foreclosures often come to the bank in poor condition, and they command lower prices, on average, than short sales.

The mortgage lenders now often pay large incentives to borrowers willing to cooperate in getting short sales done. For instance, Bank of America is offering some struggling homeowners payments of up to $30,000 if they sell their homes in a short sale and avoid ending up in foreclosure.  

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U.S. consumers barely increased their spending on retail goods in April. The weak gain was affected by cheaper gas prices and possibly a mild winter, which may have encouraged consumers to make purchases in the previous two months.

The Commerce Department says retail sales rose 0.1 percent April. Retail spending had risen 0.7 percent in March and 1 percent in February.

Some of the drop was the result of lower gas prices business cards design. But excluding gasoline station sales, retail sales rose just 0.2 percent. That means consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of economic activity, got off to a sluggish start for the April-June quarter.

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is a surprise.

Originally conceived as a photo-sharing site, the year-old company became a Silicon Valley punchline after its disasterously overhyped launch. Major investors like Sequoia Capital and Bain Capital flung $41 million at the startup, only to see it implode within days of going live. Color’s top product executives quickly headed out the door.

Nguyen shrugged and pivoted. He’s got plenty of cash in the bank to experiment with, and no shortage of ideas guaranteed personal loan approval. The video market is exactly the kind of wide-open fiend that Nguyen, a serial entrepreneur who sold his last venture to Apple (, Fortune 500), loves to play in.

"We want to give people a glimpse of the future and deliver it as fast as possible," he says. 

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UPDATED at 5:30 p.m. with more information.

One of the region’s biggest casinos is about to get a new owner.

Penn National Gaming on Monday announced a deal to buy Harrah’s Maryland Heights Casino from Caesars Entertainment for $610 million. The purchase, expected to close by the end of the year, will give the fast-growing Pennsylvania gaming company a deeper foothold in the $1.1 billion St. Louis casino market, eight years after it bought locally based Argosy Gaming.

“The planned addition of Harrah’s St. Louis will further expand Penn National’s regional operating platform with a facility that is extremely well-positioned in a large metropolitan market,” said Penn CEO Peter Carlino.

The casino, which opened on the Missouri River in 1997, is the region’s second-busiest by revenue. Gamblers spent $268.4 million there last year, according to the Missouri Gaming Commission, down 1.2 percent from 2010.

It has a 500-room hotel, 4,600-car parking garage and 2,600 slot machines. But the property has seen relatively little investment in recent years, even as new rivals around the region have opened up and old ones have expanded.

Its parent company, Caesars, was acquired by private equity firms in 2008, and went public in February. Chief executive Gary Loveman has said he hoped to sell some properties to fund new projects.

“The sale of this property exemplifies our strategy to maximize returns from our mix of assets through investments in new markets as well as occasional divestitures,” he said. “We are committed to expanding our distribution network into growth markets that have the potential for high returns no fax payday loan.”

While Caesars is selling, Penn has been growing.

The company bought a casino in Las Vegas last year and has opened new properties in Maryland, Ohio and, just this February, Wyandotte County, Kansas. It has had a presence in the St. Louis market — owning the Argosy Alton — since buying Argosy Gaming in 2004 for $1.4 billion.

Having two casinos in the St. Louis market could help Penn save money on marketing and back office costs. But spokesman Joe Jaffoni said that synergy was not a major factor in the deal.

“(Maryland Heights) is just a good asset. It’s got a good long-term operating history,” he said. “It’s pretty much in the Penn National sweet spot.”

After the sale goes through, Penn will re-brand the casino to its “Hollywood” brand, which it uses at 11 other properties and “will invoke the glamour of 1930s art deco Hollywood.”

The deal will need approval by the Missouri Gaming Commission, which vets all casino-license holders in the state. Penn already owns a property in Kansas City, so that process may be quicker than if it were a new company to the state.

The casino employed nearly 1,900 people in 2010, according to Maryland Heights financial documents. There was no word Monday on how the sale might affect workers there.

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Portuguese bond yields, the highest after Greece

European stocks slipped Friday on weak Chinese economic data and persistent tensions in eurozone debt markets, while Asian markets were buoyed by a botched North Korean missle test.

Concerns about the prospects for global groth remained the market focus after official data in China showed its economy grew at an 8.1 percent pace in January-March, its slowest in nearly three years.

Although Asian investors brushed off the news on hopes the country would provide more economic stimulus, European markets gave it more weight. As the world’s largest exporter, China is a bellwhether for global economic growth, which European countries desperately need to heal their public finances.

France’s CAC-40 dropped 1.1 percent to 3,233.49, while Germany’s DAX shed 0.99 percent to 6,676.32. The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares fell 0.57 percent to 5,677.95.

“Unimpressive macro newsflow continued, which has kept concerns about global economic prospects at the forefront of the market’s mindset,” Credit Agricole analysts said.

Helping to weigh on European stocks was continued pressure in bond markets, with yields on Spanish debt inching higher, a sign of investor unease over the country’s financial future.

U.S. stocks were also poised to fall on the open. Dow futures were down 0.4 percent to 12,904 while the broader S&P 500 futures fell 0.4 percent to 1,381.10.

In Asia, markets mostly closed higher as traders were reassured by news that a North Korean rocket exploded soon after takeoff. South Korea’s Kospi jumped 1.1 percent to 2,008.91.

Tensions had risen as North Korea pushed ahead with the launch despite protests from the U.S., South Korea and other countries that deemed it a test of missile technology. Pyongyang said it was to put into orbit a satellite commemorating the anniversary of its founder’s birth.

Mainland Chinese shares were higher as regional investors saw the GDP figures as proof that the economy would avoid a brusk slowdown and that authorities might clear further measures to boost growth. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index edged up 0.3 percent to 2,359.16. The smaller Shenzhen Composite Index added 0.6 percent to 950.91.

“The GDP data is within earlier expectations and both policy and the economy are stable. Even if the slowdown is obvious, growth is still above the government’s target,” said Li Jianfeng, an analyst at Caida Securities, based in Shanghai. The government’s annual growth target is 7.5 percent.

Overall, there was a sense of confidence that China is managing to steer the economy into a slower growth track without veering toward a ‘hard landing.’

“Chinese policymakers likely are neither as asleep at the wheel nor as paralyzed by political indecision as global investors seem recently to be fearing,” Michael Kurtz of Nomura in Hong Kong said in a report.

In currency markets, the euro fell 0.2 percent to $1.3154 and the dollar inched up to 80.94 Japanese yen.

Concerns persist that high energy prices _ driven in part by unrest in the Middle East _ could weigh on any economic recovery. Benchmark oil was down 45 cents to $103.19 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose by 94 cents to finish at $103.64 on Thursday.

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Investor fear calmed on both sides of the Atlantic on Wednesday, one day after the worst plunge on Wall Street this year.

In the United States, Alcoa reported a surprise profit after the stock market closed on Tuesday, raising hope that corporate earnings may not be as weak as analysts think. More reports will trickle out over the next few weeks.

And in Europe, borrowing costs for Spain edged down after nearly reaching 6 percent the day before. Seven percent is generally considered the point at which countries must seek bailouts.

The result was a U-turn on Wall Street. The Dow Jones industrial average shot up 100 points in early trading, to 12,815. It had a 214-point drop Tuesday, its biggest this year and the fifth straight day of declines.

European markets rose, too. Stocks climbed roughly 1 percent in the major capitals after losing 2 to 3 percent the day before. The dollar and Treasury prices fell.

The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 rose 13 points to 1,371. The Nasdaq composite index re-crossed the closely watched 3,000 mark, rising 26 points to 3,017.

Alcoa’s stock soared 8 percent in the morning, investors’ first chance to react to its report that it had turned a quarterly profit and handily beat the expectations of Wall Street analysts, who were predicting a loss. Since Alcoa is the first company in the Dow to report earnings, its results have a greater ability to propel the market than companies that report later.

Investors on Wednesday seemed to latch onto a few pieces of good news out of Europe. Spain’s borrowing rate on its 10-year bonds dropped back to 5.87 percent, down from Tuesday’s four-month high of 5.93 percent. Seven percent is usually considered the point at which a country can longer afford to borrow money.

But there were other signs that problems in Europe are still hibernating rather than solved. Spain’s borrowing costs are still dangerously high. Italy sold 12-month bonds but was forced to pay more than double the interest rate compared to last month, a concession to investors who are nervous about Europe’s health. Even Germany, whose bonds are considered a much safer investment, struggled in its own debt sale. Germany failed to sell all the 10-year bonds that it intended to on the open market.

Upcoming elections in Greece and France also threaten to unravel some of the uneasy peace that has been reached between the weak and the strong countries in Europe. Opposition candidates have promised they won’t go along so easily with the European deals that have been hammered out calling for weaker countries like Greece to cut spending if they are to continue to get rescue funds. Uncertainty in Greece went to a new level Wednesday when the country announced it will hold parliamentary elections months ahead of schedule.

In Cleveland, Planned Financial Services CEO Frank Fantozzi hoped that Alcoa’s good earnings portended more strong reports on line pay day loans. But he was still keeping a close eye on Europe.

“You have people kind of on pins and needles right now,” Fantozzi said. “Europe is spiraling into recession. The question is, is it going to ripple across the Atlantic to the United States.”

The Dow’s 550-point plunge of the previous five days is small potatoes compared to last summer’s frightening swings, including an eight-day plunge when the market shed 858 points as Congress bickered about government debt limits and the S&P prepared to downgrade the U.S. government’s debt rating.

In recent weeks, Europe’s debt crisis and concerns about U.S. earnings haven’t been the only problems. There are also signs that jobs growth is slowing and that the Federal Reserve is disinclined to pump more money into the economy. Some of the sell-off is also probably from investors trying to get out of the market now with their first-quarter gains still intact. If the Dow closes higher today, it will be the first time since April 2 and only the second gain since the second quarter began.

Despite the uncertain second quarter, the first quarter was stellar. The market rose steadily, and that has fueled its ability to handle recent negative news.

“It’s like a person,” Fantozzi said. “If you’re feeling good overall and a couple negative things happen, you just shrug it off. If you’re feeling lousy overall and then you get some good news, you still feel lousy.”

Investors remain concerned that high gas prices could rekindle a recession, forcing companies to raise prices and crimping household budgets.

Oil prices inched up toward $102 per barrel Wednesday on the New York Mercantile Exchange, reversing Tuesday’s decline. Though they’re down from the nearly $110 per barrel reached last month, they’re still above October’s price of $75.

The rising prices are partly because of international tension over Iran’s nuclear program, with new talks scheduled to begin Saturday. Iran, which has already cut off shipments to several European countries, said Wednesday it had stopped shipping to Germany.

Among stocks making big moves:

_Avon rose nearly 3 percent, two days after naming a new CEO that it hopes will turn around a company plagued by bribery allegations and an unwanted takeover bid.

_Owens-Illinois Inc., which makes glass containers for the food and beverage industries, jumped 10 percent. The company said it expects its earnings per share to surge 35 percent because of more productive manufacturing methods and cost cuts.

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Ford Motor Co. is raising its forecast for U.S. auto sales this year, citing improving consumer confidence, employment, low interest rates and other factors.

Ford’s Americas President Mark Fields said Wednesday that the company now expects full-year U.S. sales in the range of 14.5 million to 15 million. That’s up from 13.5 million to 14.5 million at the beginning of this year.

“We had been planning for industry sales to improve to this level, but it has happened a bit sooner than we planned,” Fields said guaranteed approval cash loans.

Fields said Ford will likely lose market share because it won’t make enough vehicles to satisfy demand. The company may add production capacity in the fourth quarter, he said.

Automakers posted their best monthly sales since 2007 in March, with 1.4 million vehicles sold.

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