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NEW YORK - US shares closed mixed Friday in volatile trading after Citigroup reported better-than-expected losses and Microsoft and Google issued dim outlooks that roiled tech stocks.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 49.91 points (0.44 percent) to close at 11,496.57.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite dropped 29.52 points (1.28 percent) to finish at 2,282.78, while the broad-market Standard and Poor's 500 was virtually flat, up 0.36 point (0.03 percent) at 1,260.68.
"Given the general sense of pessimism pervading much of the action in recent weeks, the session's downturn should not be viewed as too disappointing. Profit-taking efforts are unsurprising," analysts at Briefing.com wrote in a client note.
The market staged a weak, late rally but failed to build on the huge surge of the past two sessions amid falling oil prices and stronger-than-expected company earnings that had pushed up the Dow by 484 points.
Analysts cautioned that confidence remained fragile in the face of falling housing prices, rising inflation and financial turmoil.
"The recent rally is indeed a relief for bullish-minded investors, but a lot of work remains to be done until the market gathers the confidence to believe the recent move is anything more than a bounce from very oversold conditions that has been accentuated by short-covering," said Patrick O'Hare, an analyst at Briefing.com.
Citigroup, one of the world's biggest banks, boosted sentiment with stronger than expected results considering its huge losses amid the housing crisis.
Citigroup posted a 2.495 billion dollar quarterly loss on more hefty real estate write-offs.
The loss, amounting to 54 cents a share, was slightly better than Wall Street analysts' expectations of 61 cents a share.
Citi said it wrote off an additional 7.2 billion dollars in securities and banking, largely from soured property market bets, bringing its total to some 50 billion dollars since the onset of the sub-prime crisis.
"Citi has taken more write-downs than any other firm since the credit crisis began," said analysts at Briefing.com, adding that the latest results "were ahead of the average analyst estimate and an improvement over the previous quarter."
The results contrasted with those of investment giant Merrill Lynch, which on Thursday announced a loss of 4.89 billion dollars and write-offs of more
than nine billion.
Citi shares leapt 7.7 percent to close at 19.35 dollars. Merrill Lynch added 0.6 percent at 30.91.
Elsewhere in the financial sector, Washington Mutual skyrocketed 18.64 percent to 5.92 and Bank of America, which is to report quarterly earnings next week, jumped 3.74 percent to 27.49.
The tech sector slipped after Microsoft and Google signaled, after the market close Thursday, that tougher times were ahead amid the US economic woes, despite solid quarterly earnings.
Microsoft tumbled 5.89 percent to 25.86 dollars and Google shed 9.77 percent to 481.32.
Among stocks in focus, Barr Pharmaceuticals, the world's fourth-largest generic drugs maker, soared 10.95 percent to 64.43 dollars after announcing it would be bought by Israel's Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, the sector leader, in a 7.46 billion dollar cash-and-stock deal.
Bonds fell back. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury bond fell rose to 4.081 percent from 4.038 percent Thursday and that on the 30-year bond climbed to 4.662 percent from 4.638 percent. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.
- AFP /ls
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