Wall Street fell in late morning trading on Friday, a day after a strong rally pushed the Nasdaq Composite index to a record high, but the major indexes were still on track for their strongest weekly performance in about two months. The Nasdaq Composite broke its last standing milestone from the dot-com era on Thursday, while the S&P 500 rose to within 0.5 percent of its record high on the Fed's perceived dovishness regarding the pace of a rate hike.
US stocks were also affected on Friday by the "quadruple witching" day - the expiration of stock options, index options, index futures and single-stock futures - as traders close hedging positions or roll them over at the last minute. "When you're facing the turmoil that is all things Greece, and the quadruple witching, you'll have some pretty decent turmoil," said Hugh Anderson, managing director at HighTower Advisors in Las Vegas. "2015 has turned out to be a fairly 'noisy' market. You're getting a lot of luster without a lot of progress."
At 11:11 am ET (1511 GMT) the Dow Jones industrial average was down 38.93 points, or 0.21 percent, at 18,076.91, the S&P 500 was down 3.45 points, or 0.16 percent, at 2,117.79 and the Nasdaq Composite was down 8.07 points, or 0.16 percent, at 5,124.88. Five of the 10 major S&P 500 sectors were lower, with the financial index leading the declines, with a 0.47 percent drop. Microsoft's 0.9 percent drop weighed the most on the S&P and the Nasdaq while Traveler's 1 percent fall, was the biggest drag on the Dow.
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