Wall Street mixed after rudderless session
Wall Street stocks closed mixed Friday in rudderless trade as a decline in oil prices weighed on heavyweight oil majors and investors shrugged off disappointing consumer sentiment data.
After zigzagging into and out of positive territory, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 28.34 points (0.32 percent) to end at 8,799.41. The blue chip Dow has now joined the other major indices in wiping out losses since the start of the year.
The tech-studded Nasdaq fell 3.57 points (0.19 percent) to 1,858.80, while the broad-market Standard & Poor's 500 index edged up 1.32 points (0.14 percent) to close at 946.19.
"We are witnessing the epitome of a range-bound market," said Patrick O'Hare of Briefing.com.
Trading volume and news flow were sparse ahead of the weekend.
"It was a very quiet day," said Mace Blicksilver of Marblehead Asset Management.
"It looks like a summer in the 1970s. No one is really around, no one cares. The market is not cheap so that people think they have to buy it, but people are too scared to sell anything because if that happens you don't get a chance to get it back," he added.
Investors shrugged off the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index showing a gain in June for the fourth month running that was slightly below market expectations.
"The report suggests that the recent improvements in economic data are helping sentiment but some concerns about inflation and the impact of higher interest rates on the recovery in the economy may be beginning to creep into the equation," Charles Schwab & Co. analysts said in a client note.
Official data on import prices showed an annualized 1.3 percent increase in May, led by a spike in oil prices, but inflation concerns appeared tame as the economy grapples with the strongest recession in decades.
"Inflation pressures from oil are already here but for the rest of the economy, price increases should remain muted for quite some time," said Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors.
The energy sector, which had provided some support to the equities market this week, was under pressure as oil prices fell back from Thursday's peak above 73 dollars a barrel in profit taking.
On the blue-chip Dow index, ExxonMobil fell 0.36 percent to 73.78 dollars while Chevron climbed 1.07 percent to 72.67 dollars.
"The market remains preoccupied with oil prices and bond yields," said Scott Marcouiller of Wells Fargo Advisors.
Bond market tensions continued to ease following strong demand for a Treasury auction on Thursday that had helped soothe concerns about ballooning US debt and higher interest rates that could hamper economic recovery.
The yield on the 10-year bond fell to 3.788 percent from 3.862 percent Thursday and that on the 30-year bond declined to 4.633 percent from 4.692 percent. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.
“A drop in yields for 10-year Treasury notes gave stocks some support. The yield on the 10-year note fell below 3.8 percent, easing concerns about interest rates," Marcouiller said.
In the tech space, Google fell 0.97 percent to 424.84 dollars and IBM shed 1.09 percent to 108.21 dollars.
Microsoft jumped 2.19 percent to 23.33 dollars after the software giant said Thursday it would not bundle Internet Explorer Web browsers with its Windows 7 operating system sold in Europe, to address European Union competition concerns.
In the financial sector, investment fund BlackRock tumbled 3.31 percent to 176.56 dollars after announcing late Thursday it would buy British bank Barclays' investment arm BGI for 1.35 billion dollars.
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