NEW YORK — U.S. stocks on Friday rallied back from stiff losses to end mostly lower after the Dow Jones industrial average traded in a 1,000-point range in the final session of its worst week ever, as shaken investors looked for intervention from global finance ministers.
The indexes had plunged sharply for an eighth straight day, with the Dow industrials sliding nearly 700 points at the start. It fell under 8,000 for the first time since 2003 as fears escalated that the trauma in the credit markets could be paving the way toward a global recession.
In Washington, finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven nations were meeting, with economists looking to the gathering for coordinated measures to encourage banks to resume lending to one another.
“The G7 meeting kicked off and (a) broader move is reportedly afoot to adopt the U.K. strategy of direct support for the dysfunctional banking system,” said analysts at Action Economics.
At the close, the Dow was off 128 points, or 1.5 percent, at 8,451.19, down 1,874 points, or 18.2 percent, for the week.
Twenty of the Dow’s components closed in the red, with shares of Alcoa Inc. pacing the blue-chip declines, off 9.7 percent, followed by oil giants Chevron and Exxon Mobil Corp., down 8.4 and 8.3 percent respectively.
Among the blue-chip gains was General Electric Co., up 13.1 percent after it reported a third-quarter profit that met Street expectations and said it was on pace to meet its recently revised projections for 2008.
Another blue chip, General Motors Corp., rose 2.7 percent after falling to below $5 a share the prior session for the first time in 58 years, with Standard & Poor’s putting the automaker’s debt on negative credit watch late Thursday.
Bank of America Corp. also bolstered the Dow, its stock rising 6.3 percent.
“A psychiatrist is what is needed to help investors today,” said Tony Crescenzi, chief bond market strategist at Miller Tabak & Co.
But others saw light at the end of the tunnel.
“I’m more convinced now than ever that this market has made a bottom. The capitulation came when we breached 8,000,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Avalon Partners.
“It doesn’t mean we can’t go back and revisit that level,” Cardillo added.
Short-lived trips into the green — including a dramatic near-300-point rise in the afternoon — prompted cheering on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
“There was cheering as the market was recovering and it wasn’t the meltdown we saw in the Asian markets,” said Paul Nolte, director of investments at Hinsdale Associates.
The S&P 500 fell 10.7 points, or 1.2 percent, to 899.22, giving it a weekly loss of 18.2 percent — its worst weekly drop ever — and leaving it on track for its worst year since 1937.
The Nasdaq Composite was down 15.3 percent from the week-ago close and marked its fourth-worst weekly percentage drop ever.
