Jpmorgan earnings weigh on U.S. stocks

A rare disappointing earnings report from Jpmorgan Chase battered bank stocks Friday and helped push the rest of the market lower. Rumors of imminent downgrades for the credit ratings of European governments drove the euro down and sent investors streaming into U.S. debt.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 48 points. Markets were little changed late in the day after France’s finance minister confirmed that Standard & Poor’s had stripped the country of its AAA credit rating.

Before the market opened, Jpmorgan said quarterly profit declined 23% from a year earlier, slightly worse than what analysts expected. The bank’s stock lost 2%, and other large banks followed. Morgan Stanley fell 3% and Goldman Sachs 2%.

“Jpmorgan is the gold standard,” said Phil Orlando, chief equity strategist at Federated Investors. “So what happens to the banks that aren’t quite as strong and aren’t quite as wellmanaged?”

The dollar and U.S. Treasury prices rose as investors moved money into lower-risk assets. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note fell to 1.87% from 1.92% late Thursday.

In other trading, the S&P 500 index fell 6 points and the Nasdaq fell 14.

Even with Friday’s fall, all three of the major indexes posted gains for the second straight week.