February proved to be a strong month for U.S. stocks, even though it ended in downbeat fashion.
Major stock indexes closed lower Friday, capping a week of subdued trading that still delivered a couple of new highs for the Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor’s 500 index. It also brought the Nasdaq composite within striking distance of its March 2000 high.
The Nasdaq notched the biggest monthly gain at 7.1 percent.
But the S&P 500’s 5.5 percent performance marked its best monthly increase since October 2011 and a turnaround from its 3.1 percent slide in January. The Dow rose 5.6 percent for the month.
Trading was listless for much of Friday as investors balanced encouraging reports on housing and consumer confidence against data showing that the U.S. economy grew at a slower annual rate in the final months of 2014 than previously estimated. Technology stocks were among the biggest decliners.
“Many people are trying to figure out what to do, taking some profits when they can. We saw that over the past couple of days with tech stocks,” said JJ Kinahan, TD Ameritrade’s chief strategist. “It’s a wait-and-see attitude.”
The Dow ended down 81.72 points, or 0.5 percent, to 18,132.70. That’s 0.5 percent below its most-recent high of 18,224.57 on Wednesday.
The S&P 500 slid 6.24 points, or 0.3 percent, to 2,104.50. The index is down 0.5 from a high of 2,115.48 on Tuesday.
The Nasdaq fell 24.36 points, or 0.5 percent, to 4,963.53. The index has been inching closer to crossing the 5,000-point mark, something it hasn’t done since March 2000 at the height of the dot-com era. It’s now within 86 points of that record.
