Stocks mixed after inflation report
Stock prices ended mixed Friday after the market pulled back late in the session despite a favorable reading on inflation.
In other markets, oil rose, the dollar rallied and gold tumbled.
The Dow Jones industrial average scored its fifth gain in six sessions, rising 28.76 points, or 0.2%, to a record 12,445.52. The 30-stock index is up 16.1% year to date, on track for its best year since 2003.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index hit a fresh six-year high, inching up 1.60 points, or 0.1%, to 1,427.09. It is up 14.3% this year.
The technology-dominated Nasdaq composite index rose 3.35 points, or 0.1%, to 2,457.20, and is up 11.4% year to date.
But losers had a modest edge over winners on the New York Stock Exchange and on Nasdaq.
The session was affected by trading related to the quarterly expiration of stock index futures and options contracts, analysts said. That trading also caused NYSE volume to swell.
For the week, the major indexes scored strong gains amid continuing expectations that the economy will grow in 2007 and that the Federal Reserve will either hold the line on interest rates or begin cutting them.
The Fed met Tuesday and left its key short-term rate unchanged at 5.25%, where it has been since June.
“You have a fairly benign interest rate environment which has eased the pain that oil inflicted back in the summer,” said John O’Donoghue, co-head of equities at Cowen & Co.
The economic picture and a recent rush of corporate takeover deals have left investors feeling emboldened, he said, and the market could rally further in the final two weeks of the year.
Oil, however, may again be threatening the markets: The near-term crude futures contract rose 92 cents to $63.43 a barrel, matching a two-month high set Dec. 1. The price rose $1.40 for the week on news of declining U.S. crude inventories and a decision Thursday by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to trim output in February.
Higher energy prices haven’t yet been enough to dim Wall Street’s bullish mood.
The Dow gained 1.1% for the week, the S&P; 500 rose 1.2% and the Nasdaq index climbed 0.8%.
The government said Friday that consumer prices were unchanged in November, bolstering optimism about the longer-term trend in interest rates.
The 10-year Treasury note yield ended at 4.59%, down from 4.6% on Thursday but up from 4.55% a week earlier.
The inflation report also helped the dollar, analysts said. The euro, which soared against the buck in November, pulled back for a third straight day, to $1.308 from $1.315 on Thursday.
Gold, which tends to move in the opposite direction of the dollar, fell sharply. Near-term gold futures in New York ended at a five-week low of $615 an ounce, down $11.60.
The metal still is up 19% this year, on track for its sixth straight yearly gain.
Among the day’s market highlights:
* General Electric led the Dow higher, gaining $1.15 to $37.36, a two-year high. Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt said this week that profit would rise as much as 13% next year as the company focuses on sales growth overseas.
* Weyerhaeuser climbed $2.44 to $71.93, extending a rally that began Thursday after Franklin Mutual Advisers, the company’s second-largest shareholder, recommended converting Weyerhaeuser’s timber assets to a real estate investment trust.
* Quiksilver surged $1.19 to $15.75, a 52-week high. The Huntington Beach-based apparel maker on Thursday posted sharply higher sales and profit.
* AT&T; was unchanged at $35.66. The company raised its quarterly dividend 7%, to 35.5 cents a share.
* On the downside, Black & Decker had its steepest decline in a decade. The biggest U.S. maker of power tools cut its fourth-quarter profit forecast because it said the housing slump had led to significantly lower sales. The shares plunged $8.66 to $78.26.
* Wrapping up the busiest week of the year for new stock offerings, digital media storage device maker Isilon Systems soared $10.10 to $23.10 on its first trading day.
In other first-trading-day action, ethanol producer U.S. BioEnergy rose $1.10 to $15.10, biotech firm Affymax shot up $8.88 to $33.88 and Burger King franchisee Carrols Restaurant Group gained $2.20 to $15.20.
