Thaindian News

New York, Oct 17 (DPA) US stocks ended the week lower Friday after disappointing earnings from the bellwether firm General Electric and financial giant Bank of America.
The decline pushed the Dow Jones Industrial Average back below 10,000 points, two days after it had breached the symbolic mark for the first time in more than a year.

General Electric’s profits were down 42 percent to $2.5 billion in the third quarter, a signal that consumer demand has yet to recover.

GE is considered a bellwether for the economy because of its involvement in a wide cross-section of industries. The company’s stock price plunged more than four percent on the earnings report.

Bailed-out financial firm Bank of America reported a surprising $2.2-billion loss in the third quarter due to fresh credit losses.

The loss was higher than expected and comes after rivals Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase returned to billions of dollars in profits earlier this week. Citigroup also posted a loss Thursday, but said it had earnings of $101 million excluding one-time costs.

The blue-chip Dow dropped 67.03 points, or 0.67 percent, to close at 9,995.91. The broader Standard and Poor’s 500 Index fell 8.88 points, or 0.81 percent, to 1,087.68. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index fell 16.49 points, or 0.76 percent, to 2,156.80.

For the week, the Dow climbed 1.33 percent, the S&P 500 rose 1.5 percent and the Nasdaq rose 0.82 percent.

The US currency climbed against the euro for the first time in five days, rising to 67.09 euro cents from 66.93 euro cents Thursday. The dollar climbed against the Japanese currency to 90.89 yen from 90.59 yen.