An Early Gain Fades on Wall Street

NEW YORK (AP) —

An early surge on the stock market evaporated Friday, as health-care stocks tugged major indexes down.

Biotech companies were especially hard-hit after U.S. lawmakers questioned the pricing of a Hepatitis C drug made by Gilead Sciences.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index raced past an all-time high in early trading, then lost steam in the afternoon. It still finished with a solid weekly gain, up 1.4 percent.

It might sound surprising that the stock market is trading near an all-time high with all the uncertainty surrounding China’s slowing growth and simmering tensions between Russia and the West. Last week, those concerns were credited with knocking the S&P 500 index down 1.9 percent, its worst weekly loss in nearly two months.

This week investors seemed to return their focus to the basics.

“There are always bad things going on in the world, but they don’t all matter to the ultimate direction of markets,” said Douglas Coté, chief market strategist at ING U.S. Investment Management. “The only thing that matters is the following: corporate earnings, manufacturing and the consumer. And they’ve all been solid.”

The S&P 500 slipped 5.49 points, or 0.3 percent, to close at 1,866.52 Friday. It traded as high as 1,882 earlier in the day, four points above its record high reached March 7.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 28.28 points, or 0.2 percent, to 16,302.70. The Nasdaq composite dropped 42.50 points, or 1 percent, to 4,276.79.

Health-care stocks fell the most in the S&P 500 index. Gilead lost $3.46, or 5 percent, to $72.07. Biogen Idec fell $28.51, or 8 percent, to $318.53.

Nike fell after warning that a stronger U.S. dollar will dampen its results this quarter. Still, strong demand for its shoes and apparel ahead of the World Cup in June helped it beat analysts’ earnings expectations in the previous quarter, the company said late Thursday. Nike, one of the 30 stocks in the Dow, lost $4.06, or 5 percent, to $75.21.

Earlier in the week, reports on manufacturing and housing sent the stock market higher. The big stumble came Wednesday, when the Federal Reserve said it could start raising short-term interest rates as soon as next year. Traders drove down prices for gold, government bonds and stocks in anticipation of higher interest rates and borrowing costs.

Those market jitters overshadowed some good news, said Dan Veru, chief investment officer of Palisade Capital Management in Fort Lee, N.J.

“If interest rates are going higher it’s because the economy is doing better,” he said, “and that’s going to be a good thing for corporate profits. What’s so bad about that?”

In other trading Friday, the yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 2.74 percent. Crude oil rose 56 cents to close at $99.46 a barrel. Gold gained $5.50 to settle at $1,336 an ounce.

Other companies in the news:

  • Zions Bancorporation, a regional bank based in Salt Lake City, fell $1.75, or 5 percent, to $31.24.
  • Symantec lost $2.71, or 13 percent, to $18.20. The maker of security software fired its CEO late Thursday.

— News that Golden Gate Capital has acquired a stake in Ann Inc. sent the retailer’s stock soaring $4.82, or 13 percent, to $42.05. The private equity firm disclosed the 9.5 percent stake in the parent company of Ann Taylor and LOFT late Thursday.

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