NEW YORK — U.S. stocks shifted gears yet again Friday to close with modest weekly gains as an erratic market closed a roller-coaster ride focused on the credit crunch and its impact on the financial sector and the overall economy.
“This market is over-sold in the short-term, so although we’re getting more bad news today, investors are seeking out bargains as the week winds down,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Jefferies & Co.
After trading in a 160-point range on either side of neutral, the Dow Jones industrial average gained 66.74 points, a daily advance of 0.5 percent, to close at 13,176.80, giving the blue chips a 1 percent gain for the week.
Of the blue-chip index’s 30 components, 21 closed with gains, led by Hewlett-Packard, up 3.8 percent following its upgrade to overweight from equal-weight by Morgan Stanley.
The S&P 500 climbed 7.59 points, or 0.5 percent, to 1,458.74, giving it a 0.3 percent drop for the week, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 18.73 points, or 0.7 percent, to 2,637.24, a weekly jump of 0.4 percent.
Volume on the New York Stock Exchange came to nearly 1.8 billion shares, with decliners outpacing advancers on the Big Board about 9 to 7. On the Nasdaq, more than 2.5 billion shares traded, and decliners topped advancers 4 to 3.
Oil prices rose on expectations that supplies would stay tight, with crude-oil futures for December delivery up $1.67 to close at $95.10 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Elsewhere on the NYME, gold ended down 30 cents at $787 an ounce, a weekly loss of $47.70.
The dollar fell against the euro but gained on the yen, while the dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was at 75.80, down from 76.02.
Stock indexes had released their gains earlier on after the government reported U.S. industrial production declined 0.5 percent in October, and FedEx Corp. and Starbucks Corp. lowered their earnings forecasts.
The industrial production and other recent data suggest “downside risk to the remaining fourth-quarter sentiment reports,” said analysts at Action Economics.
In a speech early Friday, Federal Reserve Gov. Randall Kroszner threw more water on the possibility of an additional rate cut before the end of the year, saying rates are already low enough to get the economy through a coming “rough patch.”
On Thursday, further worries about the financial sector hit stocks, with the Dow falling 120 points, marking its sixth down day in the past seven sessions.
Those credit woes continued to batter stocks Friday, with Fannie Mae holding a news conference to talk about Fortune Magazine’s online report that the U.S. mortgage lender may have masked rising credit losses.
FedEx Corp. fell after it lowered its fiscal second-quarter forecast due to rising fuel costs.
Shares of Starbucks fell 3.8 percent after it too trimmed its earnings forecast.
