Stocks ended little changed Friday, marking a quiet finale to a turbulent year.
The Dow Jones industrial average ended marginally higher for the day and broad-market indexes finished mixed. Trading was very quiet, with many market participants absent early for the long New Year's weekend.The Dow average closed at 3,834.44, up 1.01 for the day and, coincidentally, up the same amount for the last week of 1994.
For the year, the Dow average ended up 2.14 percent, but down 3.6 percent from its all-time closing high on Jan. 31 of 3,978.36.
The Dow average spent most of Friday's trading session up moderately, but it lost nearly all of an 18-point gain in a round of selling in the final 30 minutes of trading.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by 1,372 to 1,020 on the New York Stock Exchange. Big Board volume totaled 256.25 million shares, up from 250.55 million Thursday but still light.
Among broader indexes, the NYSE's composite index fell 0.50 to 250.94. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index slipped 1.89 to 459.27.
But the Nasdaq composite index rose 2.43 to 751.96, and the American Stock Exchange's market value index added 2.31 to 433.67.
"The Dow is still telling us that the market wants to go higher here," said Michael LaTronica, director of research at Gruntal & Co., "although that's not being confirmed by the broader indexes."
But most market participants were not viewing Friday's action as signaling any market trend. "It's hard to read the phantom week between Christmas and New Year's as very important," LaTronica said.
Eugene Peroni, director of technical research at Janney Montgomery Scott in Philadelphia, added that "the tone is quite positive. There are some nice accumulation trends here that suggest that the strength in the market will carry over into the new year. We're seeing some pretty good net buying."
Some analysts contended that the underperformance this past week of small-capitalization stocks could set them up to recover in the so-called "January Effect," the tendency of small stocks to outperform larger ones in January.
The Dow has outperformed the broader market in the last two weeks in part because investors fled the troubled Mexican stock market and invested in U.S. blue chips, which were perceived as safer.
On Friday, the American depositary receipts of Mexican issues resumed their decline after two days of recovery, as the Mexican market headed lower and the peso gave ground.
Telefonos de Mexico's ADRs were the most actively traded stock on the New York Stock Exchange and down 13/8 at 41.
Bond prices fell in a shortened session, with the 30-year bond off 13-32 point and its yield, which rises when prices fall, at 7.87 percent, up from 7.84 percent on Thursday. The dollar was slightly weaker against the Deutsche mark and the Japanese yen.
Two reports offered a mixed reading on the economy. New home sales fell 2.5 percent in November, the latest sign that higher interest rates were beginning to slow the economy.
Overseas markets were mixed, with Tokyo falling, Frankfurt higher, London unchanged.