Stocks Stuck in Neutral as Rally Fades

Updated from 1:32 p.m. EDT

Stocks lost steam on Friday as oil prices rebounded and enthusiasm faded for an employment report that wasn't nearly as bad as economists were expecting.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, up some 120 points earlier, surrendered those gains and was recently trading around the flat line. The index crept up 8 points at 13,018, and the S&P 500 was tacking on 1 point to 1410.

Turning in the worst performance was the Nasdaq Composite, which sagged by 13 points at 2468 amid dismal results from Sun Microsystems (JAVA Quote).

"There was a big rush upwards yesterday, and I think that may have sapped most of the good news," said Edgar Peters, chief investment officer with Pan Agora. In the prior session, stocks soared in late reaction to the Federal Reserve's shift to a neutral tone earlier this week, when it cut the overnight lending rate by another quarter-point.

"Part of yesterday, I have a feeling, was a lot of short-covering," said Peters. "So that already took out a lot of the good upward momentum. The news today was good, but not good enough to sustain that momentum."

The deflation in equities came as crude-oil prices surged to take back some of their big losses over the past few days. Crude futures were rising $3.14 to $115.66 a barrel. Gold, meanwhile, added $7.10 to $858 an ounce.

Even so, investors continued pulling their funds out of the safe haven of Treasury securities. The 10-year note lost 18/32 in price to yield 3.84%, and the 30-year bond tumbled 20/32 in price, yielding 4.54%.