Stocks turned in a mixed performance in quiet trading Friday, with the Dow Jones industrials halting a four-day losing streak and returning above 6,000 while broad-market indexes retreated.
The market recovered somewhat from early morning losses when a report of sluggish home sales calmed inflation worries.The Dow gained 14.54 to 6,007.02, peaking back over 6,000 after closing below it on Thursday for the first time since Oct. 11. But the blue-chip index still was down 87.21 points for the week from its all-time closing high last Friday of 6,094.23.
Despite the Dow's gain Friday, traders were not ready to proclaim a turnaround. Friday's breadth was indecisive, with advancing issues squeezing past decliners on the New York Stock Exchange by fewer than 20 issues. Volume was lighter at 364.98 million shares as of 4 p.m., down from 415 million Thursday.
Among broad-market measures, the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index fell 1.37 to 700.92, the NYSE's composite index declined 0.52 to 373.26, the Nasdaq composite index fell 2.20 to 1,222.60, and the American Stock Exchange's market index slipped 0.01 to 569.79.
And more than 9 points of the Dow's 14-point gain was based on Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing which rose 31/8 to 743/8. 3M reported third-quarter earnings of 95 cents a share, up from 82 cents a year ago. Its results were heartening to traders who had sold shares earlier in the week of companies that just met or came below earnings expectations.
Oil company shares added an additional 13 points to the Dow, as heating-oil futures prices settled up 12.3 cents to 71.72 cents a gallon. Texaco led the Dow industrials higher and rose 21/2 to 1031/4. Exxon rose 11/4 to 881/2, and Chevron, a third Dow component, rose 5/8 to 671/8.
United Technologies, a Dow component that rose sharply on earnings Thursday, gained an additional 11/4 to 1287/8.
Stocks began the day lower with bond prices after the Commerce Department said orders to U.S. factories for big-ticket durable goods shot up 4.6 percent in September, the steepest jump in nearly four years.
The durable goods report raised new questions about the extent to which the economy is slowing, but its impact was muted when Commerce pinned much of the advance on rebounding aircraft orders. Excluding the transportation component, orders were up 0.9 percent, the fifth increase in the past six months.
Bonds recovered, pushing the Dow industrials up with them, after the National Association of Realtors said September resales of existing homes fell 2.9 percent, challenging the notion that the economy is heating up too fast.
The housing data "reconfirmed that the economy slowed in September," said Hugh Johnson, market strategist at First Albany Corp. "It made it all that much more unlikely that the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates in November, and it gave new life to both the bond and stock markets."
Investors took profits in the railroad stocks after Norfolk Southern Corp., which is battling for control of Conrail Inc., asked a federal court to block Conrail's proposed merger with CSX Corp.
Conrail shares fell 1/4 to 933/8, Norfolk Southern was down 1 to 911/2, but shares of CSX ended up 1/8 at 441/8.
The Dow Jones transportation average, of which all three railroad shares are a part, declined 11.13 points, or 0.52 percent, to 2,126.68. Burlington Northern Santa Fe, another railroad and Dow transport constituent, fell 21/8 to 811/2.
In overseas trading, the Nikkei stock index in Tokyo declined 1.25 percent, dropping for the fifth consecutive session under selling pressure from foreign investors discouraged about Japan's sluggish economy.
The FT-SE 100 in London added 0.58 percent, but the DAX index in Frankfurt eased 0.16 percent.