SAN FRANCISCO — U.S. stocks finished lower Friday, with the Dow industrials marking a third-straight session of losses, a day after Moody’s Investors Service put ratings of more than a dozen Italian banks on review and Oracle Corp. reported disappointing results.
“The market unravel was probably precipitated by worries about European banks and earnings shortfalls in the tech sector,” said Elliot Spar, market strategist at Stifel Nicolaus & Co.
Down for a third day to post a loss of 0.2 percent for the week, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index declined 15.05 points, or 1.2 percent, closing at 1,268.45, with energy and technology knocked the hardest among its 10 industry groups.
Also off for a third consecutive session, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 115.42 points, or 1 percent, to end at 11,934.58 — down 0.6 percent for the week.
The Nasdaq composite index shed 33.86 points, or 1.3 percent, to finish at 2,652.89, with the index scoring a weekly gain of 1.4 percent. That was its first winning week in the past six.
Late Thursday, Moody’s put the long-term debt and deposit ratings of more than a dozen Italian banks and two Italian government-related financial institutions on review for possible downgrade.
“Worries are building again in whether the European Union can contain the debt crisis around Greece, Ireland and Portugal,” said Peter Boockvar, equity strategist at Miller Tabak, who noted a rise in Spanish and Italian bond yields.
Oracle’s shares closed 4.1 percent lower after the company reported late Thursday that hardware sales were off 6 percent in its fourth quarter.
The latest U.S. economic data proved stronger than anticipated, with durable-goods orders up by 1.9 percent in May, as the Commerce Department also revised up its estimate of economic growth to a 1.9 percent rate for the first quarter.
“As has been the case lately, the domestic numbers are playing second fiddle to the events overseas,” said Kevin Giddis, fixed-income strategist at Morgan Keegan & Co.
