Jan 25, 2008 3:30 pm US/Central
Stocks End Sharply Down
NEW YORK (AP) ―
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A specialist monitors trading on floor of the New York Stock Exchange. (File)
AP
Wall Street ended a tumultuous week with a sharp decline Friday, backtracking following two days of stunning gains as investors turned cautious and cashed in some of their gains. The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 170 points, but managed to close with its first weekly gain in 2008.
The week, which started with a 465-point drop in the Dow soon after the market opened Tuesday, showed that the stock market is still fractious but may be going through healthy process of trying to establish a bottom following weeks of sharp declines.
Investors had an initial burst of enthusiasm Friday, sending each of the major indexes up more than 1 percent, after upbeat profit reports from big names like Microsoft Corp. and word of a possible buyout of a trouble bond insurer. But the advance proved short-lived and the eventual decline wasn't surprising given that investors putting down bets ahead of the weekend were coming off two days of big gains - including 400 points in the Dow.
"People may be looking to take some profits off the table in this volatile market. And there's a lot of activity that's coming up next week," Scott Fullman, director of investment strategy for I. A. Englander & Co., said during the day's back-and-forth trading.
President Bush is scheduled to deliver his State of the Union address Monday. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve is expected to hold its first regularly scheduled meeting of the year on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then the Labor Department plans to weigh in on the state of the job market on Friday.
Signs that the job market may have further to fall added to the market's anxiety. Media reports Friday that Goldman Sachs is laying off the bottom performing 5 percent of its work force followed an announcement Thursday by Ford Motor Co. that it is offering buyouts and early retirement to 54,000 hourly workers and laying off some salaried workers, too.
"The economy is still up in the air because so much of it depends on people having paychecks," said Kim Caughey, equity research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group.
According to preliminary calculations, the Dow fell 171.44, or 1.38 percent, to 12,207.17. The Dow had been up more than 100 points in the early going.
Broader stock indicators also fell. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 21.46, or 1.59 percent, to 1,330.61. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index fell 34.72, or 1.47 percent, to 2,326.20.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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