By Kate Gibson, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stocks wavered Friday as the Dow
industrials and S&P 500 struggled to surpass two-year highs
while the Nasdaq Composite tallied solid gains on upbeat results
from Oracle Corp. and Research In Motion Ltd.
"The market is saying, 'We're going to wrap it up for the year,'
and today we're meandering around zero," said John Canally, an
analyst at LPL Financial.
Friday's quarterly options and futures expiration could add
volatility to the market as traders close out positions, analysts
said, although as the afternoon progressed, that did not appear to
be the case.
After brief forays into positive turf, the Dow Jones Industrial
Average (DJI) was lately off 1.21 points to 11,498.04, with its 30
components evenly divided between gains and losses.
The S&P 500 (SPX) added 2.42 points to 1,245.29, with
materials the best performer and telecommunications the weakest of
its 10 industry groups.
On Thursday, the Dow and S&P 500 closed at their highest
levels since September 2008, with the Dow now up 0.8% on the week
and the S&P 0.4% higher than last Friday's close.
The Nasdaq Composite (RIXF) climbed 11.54 points, or 0.4%, to
2,648.83, setting it up for a 0.4% weekly gain.
For every seven stocks on the decline, eight were rising on the
New York Stock Exchange, where 947 million shares had traded as of
2:50 p.m. Eastern.
Signaling the recovery will pick up steam early next year, the
Conference Board's index of leading economic indicators in November
made its biggest jump in eight months.
The index, which tracks data including orders for new goods,
climbed 1.1%, as economists surveyed by MarketWatch had
expected.
Concerns from overseas were again in play after Moody's
Investors Service downgraded Ireland's government-bond rating by
five notches and said the country had a weak economic outlook.
"Unfortunately we're still in an environment where European
sovereign debt is still an issue, and then the dollar goes up a
bit, commodities go up a bit and U.S. equities get hit a little
bit," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Jefferies &
Co.
Technology offered investors a bit of bullish momentum, with
quarterly results from software giant Oracle (ORCL) and Blackberry
maker Research In Motion (RIMM) topping Wall Street's expectations
late Thursday.
Ahead of Wall Street's open, the Bank of Montreal said it would
buy Wisconsin-based Marshall & Ilsley Corp. (MI@) for $4.1
billion in stock.
On Friday, President Barack Obama was expected to sign a
bipartisan tax package, extending Bush-era tax cuts for virtually
all American workers for another two years. The U.S. House passed
the legislation Thursday night.