A choppy trading week ends with a mixed finish

Despite a choppy week of trading and a mixed finish for U.S. stocks, the market extended its recent streak of relative calm Friday.

The Standard & Poor’s 500, the market’s benchmark index, notched its 10th day in a row without a gain or drop of 1% or more. That’s the longest stretch since Jan. 26, when the market broke 41⁄2 months of calm with a 1.2% gain, which also marked a record high.

Just one week later, the market entered a bout of volatility that included a rapid plunge of 10% in February — the market’s first “correction” in two years.

Since then, the market has returned to quieter trading, even as U.S. companies report fatter profits and investors grow anxious about rising interest rates and trade tensions between the United States and China.

The S&P 500 fell 7.16 points, or 0.3%, to 2,712.97 on Friday. The Dow Jones industrial average edged up 1.11 points to 24,715.09. The Nasdaq composite fell 28.13 points, or 0.4%, to 7,354.34. The Russell 2000 index rose 1.34 points, or 0.1%, to 1,626.63, its third all-time high in a row. The indexes finished the week in the red, but they are still on track for gains this month.

After a strong start to the month, markets have been choppy this week as investors turned the page on the first-quarter earnings reporting season and weighed the implications of the ongoing trade tensions between the U.S. and China.

Traders also have been coming to grips with the yield on the 10-year Treasury note moving well past 3%. It hit 3.12% on Wednesday, its highest level in almost seven years. “The issue of inflation is starting to rear its head again,” said Jeff Kravetz, regional investment strategist for U.S. Bank Private Wealth Management.

Even so, the S&P 500 has remained in a narrow trading range, keeping volatility largely under wraps.

On Friday, banks and technology companies were among the biggest decliners, offsetting gains by industrial and healthcare stocks. Energy companies declined as crude oil prices fell.

Bond prices rose, sending yields lower. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 3.06% from 3.12%. The pullback in bond yields weighed on bank stocks.

Campbell Soup plunged 12.4% to $34.37 after the packaged foods company lowered its profit forecast and said that its chief executive was retiring effective immediately. The stock was the biggest decliner in the S&P 500 and had its worst singleday drop since 1999.

Nordstromsank 10.9% to $45.36 after the department store chain said sales at established stores showed meager first-quarter gains.

Applied Materials slid 8.2% to $49.51 after the maker of chipmaking equipment forecast revenue for this quarter that was below Wall Street’s estimates.

Industrials and healthcare stocks notched solid gains. Drugmaker Nektar Therapeutics led all stocks in the S&P 500, climbing 7.7% to $85.30. Deere & Co. rose 5.7% to $155.25 after forecasting strong growth in equipment sales.

Benchmark U.S. crude oil fell 21 cents to $71.28 a barrel. Brent crude, used to price international oil, fell 79 cents to $78.51 a barrel. Heating oil fell 2 cents to $2.27 a gallon. Wholesale gasoline fell a penny to $2.23 a gallon. Natural gas fell a penny to $2.85 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Gold rose $1.90 to $1,291.30 an ounce. Silver fell 3 cents to $16.46 an ounce. Copper fell 3 cents to $3.06 a pound.

The dollar fell to 110.68 yen from 110.75 yen. The euro fell to $1.1773 from $1.1799.