NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Dow and S&P 500 ended modestly lower on Friday, dragged down by losses of blue-chip technology that stalwarts Intel and IBM following their quarterly results, as hopes of a full economic reopening in the coming months fell .
IBM Corp. fell 9.91% and was the biggest attraction of the Dow Jones industrial average after missing estimates for quarterly revenue, affected by a rare decline in sales in its software unit.
Intel Corp. fell 9.29% as new CEO Pat Gelsinger’s post-profit comments suggested a lack of a strong embrace of outsourcing.
However, losses in the technology sector were offset by gains in Microsoft Corp. Apple Inc., keeping US major stock indexes under control and slightly raising the Nasdaq.
Energy and the financial sector were the weakest performers in the 11 S&P sectors on Friday, while defensive utility and real estate groups advanced.
“Any delay or withdrawal in the reopening is likely to be a headwind for the energy sector,” said Andrew Mies, investment director at 6 Meridien in Wichita, Kansas.
“(But) the market is telling you that its confidence in cyclicals is diminishing right now.”
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq fell some losses shortly after the opening bell, as data surprisingly showed that production activity in the US peaked in more than 13-1 / 2-years in early January, as opposed to a disappointing result to the data manager in Europe earlier.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 179.03 points, or 0.57%, to 30,996.98, the S&P 500 lost 11.6 points, or 0.30%, to 3,841.47, and Nasdaq Composite added 12.15 points, or 0.09%, to 13,543.06.
The volume of US stock markets was 12.79 billion shares, compared to the average of 12.68 billion for the full session in the last 20 trading days.
Despite the weakness, the three major indices made weekly gains, tracking Nasdaq technology, which tracks the best weekly performance since Nov. 6, as investors gathered Alphabet Inc., Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. in the following weeks.
For the week, the S&P rose 1.94%, the Dow added 0.59%, and the Nasdaq unofficially gained 4.19%.
Given that stock values have approached levels unseen since the Dotcom era, some market participants have said that the new COVID-19 variants and hiccups in vaccine launches pose short-term risks.
President Joe Biden said Friday that the US economic crisis is deepening and that the government must take major action now to help Americans in difficulty.
“The absolute confidence that investors felt a week ago … some of them are starting to disappear from the market.” Mies added, regarding the decline of the virus and the reopening of the economy.
The Senate Finance Committee unanimously approved the nomination of Janet Yellen as First Secretary of the Treasury, indicating that she would easily win the full approval of the Senate.
Declining issues outnumbered the NYSE in advance by a ratio of 1.00 to 1; on the Nasdaq, a 1.53 to 1 ratio favored the forwards.
The S&P 500 recorded 16 new 52-week highs and no new lows; Nasdaq Composite recorded 189 new highs and 7 new lows.
Echo Wang’s report to New York; Additional reporting by Devik Jain and Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty, Anil D’Silva and Diane Craft