Solid quarter for stocks ends softly
Wall Street closed out a solid quarter Friday with a day of listless trading that ended on a soft note.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index notched its best three-month stretch since the fourth quarter of 2015. The Nasdaq composite had its best quarter since the end of 2013.
The S&P 500, Nasdaq and the Dow Jones industrial average ended the day down slightly, with financial companies posting the biggest decline. Real estate companies led the gainers.
Trading was largely subdued, suggesting that portfolio managers looking to bolster their end-of-quarter performance made their moves earlier in the week, said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial.
Bond prices edged higher. The 10-year Treasury yield fell to 2.39% from 2.42%.
The major stock indexes spent much of the day wavering as investors weighed corporate deals and new economic data.
The Commerce Department said consumer spending kept rising in February, though gains in the last two months have been slow. Meanwhile, an inflation gauge closely watched by the Federal Reserve rose 2.1% in February compared with a year earlier, a five-year high.
“The market is moving ahead into the second quarter with valuations that are high, but the expectations are that the first-quarter earnings season will confirm the valuations,” Krosby said.
All told, the S&P 500 index ended the first three months of this year with a gain of 5.5%, the Nasdaq posted a gain of 9.8% and the Dow climbed 4.6%. The Russell 2000 rose 2.1%, its fourth straight quarter of growth.
On Friday, investors bid up shares in firms with better-than-expected earnings. Industrial products firm DXP Enterprises jumped 15.7% to $37.87, and BlackBerry surged 11.1% to $10.30.
NantHealth slid 2.7% to $4.96 after the healthcare information technology firm reported disappointing fourth-quarter revenue.
Auto dealer firms were among the decliners. AutoNation fell 2.8% to $42.29.
TRC soared 46% to $17.45 after the engineering and consulting services firm agreed to be bought by a unit of the investment firm New Mountain Capital for $17.55 a share, or $365.5 million.
FMC also got a lift after the company agreed to buy part of DuPont’s crop protection business. At the same time, DuPont will buy FMC’s health and nutrition unit. FMC shares jumped 13.2% to $69.59. DuPont fell 1.6% to $80.33.
Benchmark U.S. crude oil futures gained 25 cents to $50.60 a barrel. Brent crudefell 13 cents to $52.83 a barrel. Natural gas was flat at $3.19 per 1,000 cubic feet. Wholesale gasoline rose 2 cents to $1.70 a gallon, and heating oil rose 2 cents to $1.57 a gallon.
Gold increased $3.20 to $1,251.20 an ounce. Silver rose 5 cents to $18.26 an ounce. Copper fell 2 cents to $2.65 a pound.
The euro fell to $1.0684 from $1.0691 and the dollar fell to 111.29 yen from 111.60 yen.