Stocks closed modestly higher Friday, but the Dow and S&P posted their worst weekly loss for the year after investors were rattled over slowdown fears in China and weak economic news from the euro zone.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 34.59 points, or 0.27 percent, to close at 13,080.73, snapping a three-day losing streak, led by H-P and BofA .
The S&P 500 climbed 4.33 points, or 0.31 percent, to finish at 1,397.11. The Nasdaq rose 4.60 points, or 0.15 percent, to end at 3,067.92.
The CBOE Volatility Index, widely considered the best gauge of fear in the market, ended below 15.
For the week, the Dow declined 1.15 percent, the S&P erased 0.50 percent, while the Nasdaq rose 0.41 percent, logging its sixth-straight winning week. Caterpillar was the overall biggest laggard on the Dow this week, while Cisco gained.
Six out of the 10 key S&P sectors were negative for the week, led by energy. Consumer discretionaries were the biggest winner.
“There’s a lot of skepticism and a tremendous amount of cash on the sidelines and I think the market can move higher from here,” said Russ Koesterich, global chief investment strategist at BlackRock’s iShares Group. “What I do worry about is that investors need to have modest expectations for how much the rally is going to be driven by multiple expansion.”
Koesterich said while he believes the U.S. economy will continue to see a growth, his expectations remain modest.
Apple shares ended slightly lower after flirting with the $600 level for most of the week. Earlier today, the tech giant's stock was briefly halted on a single-stock circuit breaker.
Orders placed for Apple through the BATS Global Markets came in as low as $542.80 before the stock was halted. The Nasdaq is canceling the erroneous trades made on the BATS exchange.
Meanwhile, BATS Global made its Wall Street debut Friday, after pricing its IPO at $16 per share. However, shares of the exchange operator were halted following multiple issues as alerted on its website. Eventually, the exchange operator said the stock will not reopen today all the trades executed from this morning will be canceled.
Stocks had been under pressure for most of the week amid worries of a global slowdown and on the heels of some tepid economic news in the U.S.
“There’s been a great degree of uncertainty surrounding chatter about Europe and China and the market doesn’t seem to know where to go on that,” said Jeffrey Cleveland, senior economist with Payden & Rygel.