Los Angeles Times

Oil prices, banks push stocks down

- Associated press

Stocks closed moderately lower Friday, pushed down in part by the price of oil. Investors continue to remain on edge regarding the possibilit­y of the Federal Reserve raising interest rates at its meeting next week.

Banks also fell, led by a plunge in Deutsche Bank after the giant German lender said it wouldn't settle with the U.S. Justice Department over its handling of mortgage securities in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis.

The U.S.-listed shares of Deutsche Bank dropped 9% to $13.38 after the bank said it did not intend to pay the $14-billion settlement the U.S. government asked for. Federal regulators have been looking to settle with Deutsche Bank, as they have done with the other major Wall Street firms, for its role in the mortgage bubble and financial crisis.

The Deutsche Bank news also hurt European stocks.

U.S. stocks have been volatile this week, with the Dow moving more than 100 points four out of five days. Most of the volatility has come as investors prepare for next week's Fed meeting. Although most observers do not expect a rate increase, they recognize that there is a small possibilit­y there will be one.

Meanwhile, pharmaceut­ical firm Novavax plunged 85% to $1.29 after the company said its experiment­al vaccine failed in late-stage clinical testing. Novavax has no active products on the market and this drug was its furthest in developmen­t.

Intel rose 3% to $37.67 after the company raised its revenue forecasts, citing stronger-than-expected demand for personal computers.

Oracle fell 4.7% to $38.92 after the business software maker reported disappoint­ing quarterly profit and revenue.

Twitter climbed 4.4% to $19.11 after the company launched a live streaming service for sporting events, including 10 Thursday night NFL games.

At the end of trading Friday, the Standard & Poor’s 500 added a new industry to its traditiona­l groups for the first time since the dot-com era. The benchmark stock index gained a real estate sector, which was split off from the financial services component.

The S&P 500 now has 11 sectors. The 10 others are financial services, informatio­n technology, energy, industrial­s, consumer discretion­ary companies, materials, telecommun­ications, consumer staples, healthcare and utilities.

Benchmark U.S. crude fell 88 cents to $43.03 a barrel. Brent crude, used to price internatio­nal oils, fell 82 cents to $45.77 a barrel. Heating oil fell 1 cent to $1.41 a gallon, wholesale gasoline rose 3 cents to $1.46 a gallon and natural gas rose 2 cents to $2.948 per 1,000 cubic feet.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note was mostly unchanged at 1.69%. The euro fell to $1.1151 from $1.246 and the dollar rose to 102.42 yen from 102.16 yen.

Gold fell $7.80 to $1,310.20 an ounce, silver fell 18 cents to $18.86 an ounce and copper was unchanged at $2.16 a pound.

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