NEW YORK — Stocks finished lower Friday, pulling the Dow Jones industrial average into negative territory for the week, as investors fretted about the recovery and a week of upheaval in commodities.
“There’s a lot of question marks to the economic recovery at the same time the Fed is about to take (quantitative easing 2) away, and just like with any drug addict, there’s a period of withdrawal,” said Peter Boockvar, equity strategist at Miller Tabak.
The Dow average shed 100.17 points to close at 12,595.75, pulling the blue-chip index 0.3 percent lower for the week.
Also lapsing into the red from last Friday’s close, the Standard & Poor’s 500 declined 10.88 points to end at 1,337.77, with financial companies faring worst among the benchmark’s 10 industry groups. The index lost 0.2 percent for the week.
Retaining a modest 0.03 percent weekly gain, the Nasdaq composite fell 34.57 points Friday to end at 2,828.47.
“Now that earnings season is behind us, there is currently no good news to push stocks higher until we start to get the next quarter’s expectations, which should be very good,” said Keith Springer, president of Springer Financial Advisors.
The German newspaper Die Welt reported the European Commission, International Monetary Fund and Germany were backing a Greek debt extension while the European Central Bank and France were opposing it.
“It makes sense. The Germans want to stop fronting Greece money, and it gives Greece more breathing room. And because the principal would get paid back, banks won’t have to mark the debt down,” Boockvar said. But the “lack of any consensus on how to deal with this is what is weighing on the euro.”
The market is on guard to see if the economy “is going to continue to slow down with higher prices and (quantitative easing) winding down, or does the economy pick up and call this a slow patch?” said Jay Suskind of Duncan-Williams.
Shortly after Wall Street’s open, data showed consumer sentiment for May edging upward.
