NEW YORK —U.S. stocks on Friday finished nearly unchanged, giving major indexes their first weekly drop for September.
“After having two explosive weeks to the upside, where the S&P 500 was up 3.5 percent, it’s a huge victory to come out this week virtually flat in the face of the concerns we have: the Middle East, the fiscal cliff and more bad news than good in the economic data stream,” said Art Hogan, equity strategist at Lazard Capital Markets.
“We had FedEx give us a warning on the global economy and the trapdoor fall out on the price of oil — when oil heads south, the market tends to follow, both as a barometer of the global economy and because it is the support for 20 percent of the S&P 500,” said Hogan.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 17.46 points, or 0.1 percent, to 13,579.47, leaving it down 0.1 percent from the week-ago close.
What Peter Boockvar, equity strategist at Miller Tabak, termed a “glaring market divergence” that has been going on all week culminated Friday with the Dow transportation index breaking to its lowest level since Aug. 2 and to its lowest close since early June.
“The tug of war between economic fundamentals and central-bank easing is more balanced this week after central banks dominated over the past eight weeks,” Boockvar said.
Down 0.4 percent on the week, the S&P 500 index fell a fraction to 1,460.15.
“Telecoms are the strong players, with people moving to 4G networks, and they pay pretty good dividends,” said David Abauf, chief investment officer at Hefty Wealth Partners in Auburn, Ind.
“People are trying to get into stuff that’s a little bit safer,” he said, drawing a distinction between pension funds and day traders.
Off 0.1 percent from last Friday’s close, the Nasdaq composite climbed 4 points, or 0.1 percent, to 3,179.96, bolstered by shares of Apple, up 0.2 percent. “If they sell as many as they’re anticipating, it looks like they can move about 6 million of these things by Monday,” said Hogan at Lazard Capital Markets of the latest version of the iPhone, which Apple on Friday started selling at stores around the world.
The euro gained against other currencies including the dollar after a report European officials would reveal a rescue plan for Spain, with the Financial Times on Thursday reporting Spain’s Economy Minister Luis de Guindos held discussions with European officials about structural reforms to be detailed Sept. 27.
