The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed marginally lower Friday in listless trade, but eked out a slim gain for the week for the first time in three weeks. The blue chip index extended Thursday’s losses with the telecom sector bearing the brunt of today’s selling pressure. Shares of AT&T (T) fell as much as 3% on rumors of a Time-Warner (TWX) acquisition, taking down shares of Sprint (S) and Dow component stock Verizon (VZ) in sympathy.
The Dow fell at the open as upbeat quarterly results from component stocks Microsoft (MSFT) and McDonald’s (MCD) failed to compensate for a miss on revenue and disappointing forecast from General Electric (GE).
But despite the lower close on Friday, the Dow closed the week with a gain of just 0.04%.
The S&P 500 was also lower on the day, but pulled off a one point gain on the week, while the Nasdaq ended 0.6% higher for the week.
In Fed-related news, San Francisco Fed President John Williams continued to endorse another rate hike in 2016 during his keynote address at the Federal Home Loan Bank’s member conference. Williams is a non-voting member of the Fed and considered to be one of the more dovish of the Fed presidents.
