NEW YORK -- Prices were mixed on Wall Street Friday as the stock market was unable to settle on a clear direction after Thursday's big rally. A profit warning from Caterpillar pushed blue chip stocks lower, but the NASDAQ composite managed another record high close as technology issues advanced.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 31.81 to 11,003.89, losing ground after a 152-point gain on Thursday. The Dow ended the week, which included a big rally on optimism about stable interest rates, with a gain of 234.57, or nearly 2.2 percent.Broader market indexes were mixed. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 2.94 Friday to 1,422.00. The NASDAQ composite index rose 22.14 to 3,369.25, its 13th new closing high in the past 16 sessions.
Despite the gains in the NASDAQ, investors showed less conviction than they did earlier in the week. Stocks rose sharply after the Federal Reserve indicated it had no immediate plans to raise interest rates despite its third rate increase this year.
"We've been in the midst of a vigorous rally, and from time to time, you have to step back and consolidate gains," said Barry Hyman, senior equity analyst at Ehrenkrantz King Nussbaum.
Friday was a double witching session, in which quarterly stock and index options expire, forcing traders to adjust their portfolios. These quarterly deadlines tend to increase volume and sometimes make stocks more volatile than usual.
"The market has been floundering around a little bit" said Gregory Nie, technical analyst at First Union Securities.
The biggest drain on the Dow Friday was Caterpillar, the world's largest maker of heavy machinery. Caterpillar's shares fell almost 12 percent, or by 6 9/16, to 49 3/8 after the company told investors that sales of tractors and other equipment were slower than expected.
Caterpillar said profits should come in slightly higher than the 61 cents a share earned in this year's third quarter. But analysts surveyed by First Call/Thomson Financial had expected earnings of 97 cents a share.
The downward pressure on the Dow, however, was tempered by a rise in IBM shares. A bullish analyst's report about IBM's personal computer business helped push its shares up 6 5/8 to 104 5/8.
On the NASDAQ, shares of JDS Uniphase Corp., a maker of fiber-optic equipment, rose more than 5 percent after renowned investor George Soros disclosed he owned almost 440,000 shares.
Many other Internet shares also closed higher. Shares of Vertas Software Corp., which helps companies manage data online, rose 7 15/16 to 146 5/8, after a bullish recommendation from an analyst at Warburg Dillon Reed.
Portal Software, which makes Internet billing software, reported a narrower than expected loss for the third quarter and saw its shares rise 4 15/16 to 96 15/16.
China.com, a Hong Kong-based Internet company focused on electronic commerce, jumped nearly 26 percent, or by 24 15/16, to 117 11/16 after its board declared a 2-for-1 stock split. The company is among a host of Chinese businesses expected to benefit from this week's trade deal that will open China's markets to greater foreign sales and investments.
Declining issues outnumbered advancing by a 3-to-2 margin on the New York Stock Exchange, with 1,834 down, 1,224 up and 500 unchanged.
NYSE volume totaled 874.32 million shares as of 4 p.m., vs. 1 billion in the previous session.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 0.77 to 461.27.
Overseas, Japan's Nikkei stock average rose 0.21 percent. Germany's DAX index rose 0.10 percent, Britain's FT-SE 100 was down 1.05 percent, and France's CAC-40 closed up 0.32 percent.