A bumpy day leaves stocks mostly lower; bond yields ease
A choppy day on Wall Street ended with stocks mostly lower Friday, helping push the S&P 500 to its second straight weekly loss.
Losses in banks and health care stocks helped drag the S&P 500 down 0.5%, erasing an early gain. Falling oil prices weighed on energy stocks. Technology and communication services companies, which bore the brunt of the selling a day before, recovered slightly, which helped the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite manage a 0.6% gain.
Bond yields eased off their multiweek climb. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury fell to 1.42% from 1.51%. late Thursday.
The S&P 500 index fell 18.19 points to 3,811.15. Despite a two-week slide, the index managed a 2.6% gain for February after a 1.1% loss in January.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 469.64 points, or 1.5%, to 30,932.37. The Nasdaq gained 72.91 points to 13,192.34. The index still posted its biggest weekly loss since October. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies eked out a small gain, adding 0.88 points, or less than 0.1%, to 2,201.05.
New York City’s Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza announced Friday he will step down after three years on the job, citing the coronavirus pandemic’s personal toll on his family.
He will be replaced by Bronx Executive Superintendent Meisha Ross Porter, who will become the first Black woman to lead the nation’s largest public school district.
“I know the pandemic has not been easy for you or for any New Yorker,” Carranza said, briefly choking back tears at a news conference. “And make no mistake, I am a New Yorker – well, not by birth, but by choice – a New Yorker who has lost 11 family and close childhood friends to this pandemic. And a New Yorker who, quite frankly, needs to take time to grieve.”
He said that he felt the city’s public school system, with around 1 million students, was stable enough to handle a leadership change.