A Sixth Up Week Posted by Dow
Stronger-than-expected consumer sentiment gave Wall Street a lift Friday, sending the Dow Jones industrial average to its sixth straight weekly advance as investors clung to hopes of a strengthening economic recovery.
Investors fretted over terrorism fears and brokerage downgrades of General Electric and Intel for much of the day before deciding that a spate of mixed economic news wasn’t so bad after all, analysts said.
The Dow rose 36.96 points, or 0.4%, to close at 8,579.09. Earlier in the day, blue chips dropped as much as 81 points.
The broader market finished mixed. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite fell a fraction of a point to 1,411.14. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 gained 5.56 points, or 0.6%, to 909.83.
Winners led losers by almost 3 to 2 on the New York Stock Exchange and were about even on Nasdaq. Trading was moderate.
For the week, the Dow gained 0.5% to post its sixth straight weekly advance -- its longest weekly winning streak in 3 1/2 years.
Nasdaq climbed 3.8% and the S&P; 500 rose 1.7% after snapping a four-week winning streak last week.
Early Friday, stocks may have been held back by an FBI warning of a possible new Al Qaeda attack.
But a reported rise in the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index for November later buoyed expectations for holiday spending.
Among the day’s highlights:
* GE fell 64 cents to $23.86 after J.P. Morgan Securities cut the company’s stock to “underweight” and trimmed its 2003 estimates, questioning the credibility of the firm’s forecasts.
* Intel dropped 41 cents to $18.80 after Merrill Lynch downgraded the chip maker’s stock to “sell” from “neutral.”
* Citigroup helped boost the Dow, advancing 76 cents to $36.90. The bank’s Salomon Smith Barney unit and rival Credit Suisse First Boston would pay fines of about $200 million each to federal and state regulators to settle probes into the firms’ stock research, a source familiar with the talks said.
Wall Street’s biggest firms have been holding talks with regulators to resolve conflict-of-interest questions with a broad settlement that would include fines and changes in how research departments operate.
Also Friday, FleetBoston Financial said it was negotiating with regulators to settle probes into the underwriting of new stock offerings by Robertson Stephens, its brokerage unit, which is in the process of closing. FleetBoston shares rose 22 cents to $24.93.
* Friday’s gainers included Santa Clara-based Roxio, which rose 47 cents to $3.85 after saying it would buy Napster.
Gap rose 92 cents to $14.82 after the clothing retailer reported third-quarter earnings that beat Wall Street’s estimates.
Among other retailers, Kohl’s jumped $3.19 to $66.90 and Ross Stores gained 97 cents to $44.95.
