NEW YORK — Stocks pared their losses and ended narrowly mixed Monday amid anxiety over Europe’s financial crisis and a widening probe into insider trading on Wall Street.
Bank shares slumped after the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided the offices of three hedge funds as part of a broad insider-trading probe.
Goldman Sachs Group sank 3.4 percent, while Bank of America fell 3.1 percent.
Retail and consumer-goods stocks rose on hopes that shoppers will be in a spending mood when they turn up in stores the day after Thanksgiving as the holiday shopping season gets underway.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 24.97 points, or 0.2 percent, to 11,178.58. The Dow was down as much as 149 points earlier. The Standard & Poor’s 500 fell 1.89, or 0.2 percent, to 1,197.84.
Online retailer Amazon’s shares were up 3.4 percent, and Apple rose 2.2 percent. Other technology shares also rose, pushing the Nasdaq composite up 13.90, or 0.6 percent, to 2,532.02.
Bank stocks already were under pressure because of concerns over how the bailout of Ireland announced over the weekend would affect their investment portfolios and ability to increase dividends.
“Banks will have to take a haircut,” said Benjamin Wallace, securities analyst at Grimes & Co. in Westborough, Mass. “All these issues bring into question whether banks are strong enough to pay out dividends next year and whether the government will ask them to hold on to more capital for some more time.”
Ireland formally asked for help from its neighbors Sunday after weeks of pressure from the European Union.
It was the second time this year that the European Union has come to the rescue of one of the 16 countries that use the euro. In May, the EU and International Monetary Fund committed $140 billion to Greece to prevent the country from defaulting on its debt.
A widely watched gauge of spending, MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse, showed apparel sales up 9.7 percent in the first two weeks of November.
“Consumers make up 70 percent of the economy, and there is a sense that they will start spending their increasing savings,” said Steven Goldman, chief market strategist at Weeden & Co.
