Stocks ended higher Monday, with the Dow basically flat, as investors grappled with the consequences of a victory for Greece’s anti-austerity Syriza party in general elections. Both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq composite gained 0.3%. The Dow Jones industrial average climbed a fractional 0.03% — a little more than 6 points.
Syriza opposes Greece’s international bailout plan, raising new concerns about the the stability of the European common currency block. Syriza has vowed to end Greece’s painful austerity policies and party leader Alexis Tsipras promised to end “humiliation and pain” that Greece has endured since a 2010 international bailout imposed harsh spending cuts.
European stock markets initially sank after news of the Syriza victory but quickly came back and were trading mostly higher. Germany’s DAX gained 1.4% to 10,798.33 and France’s CAC 40 added 0.7% to 4675.13. Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.3% to 6852.40. The euro bounced back, rising 0.4% to $1.1246 after trading at its lowest since 2003. Asian markets were mixed as Japan’s Nikkei 225 index fell 0.3% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 0.2%.
Wall Street snapped a four-day winning streak on Friday but still saw weekly gains. The Dow closed down 141.38 points, or 0.8%, to 17,672.60. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 11.33, or 0.6%, to 2051.82. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index bucked the trend and climbed 0.2% to 4757.88.