Stock Indexes Have an Up Week
Wall Street on Friday mostly held on to its gains of recent sessions, but pre-holiday doldrums left key indexes mixed.
Oil prices edged up after declining for three days. Treasury bond yields were higher.
The Dow Jones industrial average slipped 16.75 points, or 0.2%, to 10,188.45, but was up 221.71 points, or 2.2%, for the week.
“We’ve made some good progress in the past few days, but the market’s tired,” said Russ Koesterich, U.S. equity strategist at State Street Corp. in Boston.
Many market players got an early start on the Memorial Day holiday weekend: Trading volume was thin.
Still, rising stocks outnumbered losers by about 3 to 2 on the New York Stock Exchange and by a narrower margin on Nasdaq.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index closed essentially flat, slipping 0.60 point, to 1,120.68, and the Nasdaq composite was up 2.24 points, or 0.1%, at 1,986.74.
For the week, the S&P; 500 rose 27.12 points, or 2.5%, and Nasdaq was up 74.65 points, or 3.9%. It was the first positive week for the Dow and S&P; 500 after four straight weeks of losses, while Nasdaq posted its second straight week of gains.
For the month, the S&P; 500 rose 1.2% and Nasdaq was up 3.5%, while the Dow was down 0.4%.
Economic data were mixed Friday. A government report showed that consumer spending was restrained in April, but incomes were up sharply.
Consumer confidence data for May showed a decline.
Another report showed that an index of manufacturing in the Chicago area climbed to its highest mark since 1988. The report from the Institute for Supply Management-Chicago boosted conviction among some traders that the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates next month.
Worries about the Fed pushed the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note to 4.65% from 4.60% on Thursday, the first increase in a week.
Crude oil prices edged back up near $40 a barrel, with many traders reluctant to sell before a three-day U.S. holiday weekend and a Thursday meeting of OPEC oil producers. In New York, crude oil for July delivery rose 44 cents to $39.88 a barrel.
Among Friday’s highlights:
* Many semiconductor-related shares rose after Novellus Systems, a maker of chip manufacturing equipment, raised its earnings and revenue targets for the second quarter. Novellus was up $1.91 at $33.29, National Semiconductor gained 71 cents to $21.67 and International Rectifier rose $1.07 to $44.27.
* Acadia Pharmaceuticals, a biotech firm that went public Wednesday at $7 a share, continued to slide, losing 9 cents to $6.61. But parking lot owner Standard Parking rose for a second day after going public at $11.50 a share. The stock added 5 cents to $12.55 after rising $1 on Thursday.
In other IPO news, Irvine-based surgical vision correction firm IntraLase said it planned to go public.
* Frontier Airlines, reporting quarterly earnings before the session, posted a wider-than-expected loss because of rising jet fuel prices and intense competition among low-fare carriers. Frontier fell 6 cents to $9.30.
* El Paso lost 52 cents to $7.21 after the Houston-based energy company said its financial reports for the fourth quarter of 2003 and this year’s first quarter had not yet been audited. The company had announced this month that it would revise the results after employees overstated energy production levels.
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Market Roundup, C4
