US stocks mostly rose on Friday, with the Dow and S&P rebounding late in the day to end higher as surging oil prices lifted energy stocks and offset a sell-off in technology shares on bets that the slowing economy will sap consumer spending on gadgets.
Wall Street spent much of the session in the red, but financial shares came off their lows after the Wall Street Journal reported that Lloyds Banking Group and the UK government had agreed on an asset protection scheme, easing concerns about frail capital positions at global banks. During the session, the Dow and S&P touched fresh 12-year lows. But they erased those losses late in the session after the Journals report on Lloyds.
A 4 percent slide in Apple Inc shares helped drag the Nasdaq to a 6-year intraday low. Exxon Mobil Corp and Chevron topped the Dow as the price of oil rose 4.38 percent to settle above $45 a barrel on expectations that Opec could again reduce output. Chevron was up 3.2 percent at $58.27 and Exxon gained 2.9 percent to $64.03
The report on Lloyds "is more positive news that maybe things are getting cleaned up. I think its temporary, but its just incremental news to help the market," said Giri Cherukuri, head trader at OakBrook Investments LLC, which oversees $1.3 billion in Lisle, Illinois. Cherukuri added that the report spurred bargain hunting.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 32.50 points, or 0.49 percent, to 6,626.94. The Standard & Poors 500 Indexinched up just 0.83 of a point, or 0.12 percent, to 683.38. But the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 5.74 points, or 0.44 percent, to 1,293.85.
It was the fourth week of declines for all the indexes, while the broad S&P 500 racked up its worst week since November. For the week, the Dow lost 6.2 percent, the S&P 500 slid 7 percent, and the Nasdaq dropped 6.1 percent.
J.P. Morgan cut its price target and profit views on Apple, citing signs that Mac and iPhone volumes have been below expectations. Apples stock fell 4 percent to $85.30 on Nasdaq. Even with the late-day bounce, banks hurt sentiment, as investors remained nervous about the fate of the sector at the heart of the global economic crisis.
The S&P financial index ended down 1.4 percent, off its lows, while J.P. Morgan was down 4 percent at $15.93 and Goldman Sachs was off 7.4 percent at $75.65. Bleak economic news added to the negative tone after a government report showed the US unemployment rate rose last month to 8.1 percent, its highest since December 1983, as 651,000 jobs were cut.
The gloomy jobs picture is disconcerting news for both companies and consumers, whose spending drives corporate profits. The S&P retailers index fell 1.8 percent. Shares of big-cap technology shares followed Apples lead, with cell-phone chip and technology supplier Qualcomm down 2.9 percent at $33.63.
Shares of automaker and Dow component General Motors dropped 22 percent to $1.45 a day after auditors raised doubts about the companys viability. GM traded as low as $1.27 on the NYSE. On the upside, shares of Dow Chemical jumped nearly 10 percent to $7.11 and Rohm and Haas climbed 18.1 percent to $63.80 after the companies confirmed discussions are under way about their troubled merger.
Dow Chemical agreed last July to buy Rohm for $78 a share, but then pulled out of the deal. In other M&A activity, Roche Holding AG raised its offer to buy out the minority shareholders of Genentech Inc to $93 a share from $86.50, driving the US biotech companys stock up 11.3 percent to $90.86.
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