
Stocks End Week's Last Session With Small Gains
Updated from 3:07 p.m. EST
The major averages managed a slightly higher close Friday, but blue-chips and tech stocks ended below their best levels of the day.
The
Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 5.68 points to 10136.99. The
Nasdaq was ahead by 10.85 points, or 0.6%, to 1987.27, and the
S&P 500 tacked on 3.89 points, or 0.3%, at 1161.02.
Though corporate news continues to be slow as the holiday season winds down, a few notable developments took place in the last session of the week.
Xerox
(XRX) - Get Report
said it received $340 million in financing from GE Capital in a deal that is being secured by portions of the copier maker's lease receivables in the U.S. The financing pact comes on top of $835 million the company received last month from GE Capital, a unit of
General Electric
(GE) - Get Report
. Xerox climbed 5.5% to $10.15.
Microsoft
(MSFT) - Get Report
said it is shipping more than 100,000 Xbox game consoles to North American retailers each week through the end of year. The company said it remains on target to reach its goal of delivering 1 million to 1.5 million units for 2001. Shares of the Redmond, Wash., company were up 4 cents at $67.89. For more corporate news, check out
TheStreet.com's
Stocks to Watch.
Investors had
plenty of economic news to digest. A report from the government showed that
initial jobless claims for the week ended Dec. 22 rose 7,000 to 392,000, up from a revised 385,000 in the previous week. According to
Reuters
, economists expected 401,000 claims to be filed.
Separately, the Commerce Department said
durable goods orders fell 4.8% in November, but orders for nondefense and nontransportation items rose for the second straight month. According to
Dow Jones
, analysts expected durable goods orders to decline 5%. A
Reuters
poll forecast a drop of 4.6%.
Elsewhere, the Chicago purchasing managers' index rose to 41.4 in December from 41.1 in November. A number below 50 signals contraction, while a reading above that mark points to expansion.
New home sales surged 6.4% in November, and
existing home sales climbed 0.6%. Meanwhile, the Conference Board said the
consumer confidence index rose to 93.7 in December from an upwardly revised 84.9 the previous month.
Overseas, OPEC oil ministers agreed to cut crude oil production by 1.5 million barrels a day. Stock averages in Europe and Asia were uniformly higher. London's FTSE 100 was up 0.6% at 5242, while Germany's Xetra DAX climbed 0.8% to 5160. In Japan, the Nikkei finished ahead by 0.8% at 10,543, and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong gained 0.6% to 11,432.
Treasuries were primarily lower. Around 4 p.m. EST, the 10-year note was off 10/32 to 99 7/32, yielding 5.10%.