New York - A battered stock market recovered from a sharp drop in late trading on Friday but still posted its fourth straight weekly drop.
The Dow Jones industrials, down nearly 170 points in afternoon trading, clawed their way back to finish with a gain of 10. But more stocks fell than rose on the New York Stock Exchange as investors contended with another series of troubling signals about the global economy.
Investors are concerned that European governments will have trouble getting their massive deficits under control. The Labor Department, meanwhile, offered only scant hope of improvement in the jobs market in its closely watched monthly report.
"Clearly we've entered the worry, fear camp," said Rob Lutts, president and chief investment office at Cabot Money Management. "It's a very fragile investor psychology today. It doesn't take much ... to send them running for the hills."
The Federal Reserve also said during afternoon trading that consumers borrowed less for an 11th straight month in December but that total borrowing fell far less than expected. The drop of $1.8 billion was less than the decline of $9 billion analysts had expected. That fueled hopes that consumer spending will increase.
The Dow rose 10.05, or 0.1 percent, to 10 012.23 after being down as much as 167 points. For the week, the Dow lost 0.5 percent.
The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 3.08, or 0.3 percent, to 1 066.19 and ended down 0.7 percent for the week. The S&P 500 index hasn't fallen four straight weeks since March 2009.
The Nasdaq composite index rose 15.69, or 0.7 percent, to 2 141.12. It lost 0.3 percent for the week.
For the second straight day, there was unsettling economic news. On Thursday, the Dow fell 268 on growing worries about the global economy.
The US unemployment rate unexpectedly fell in January to 9.7 percent from 10 percent, the government reported, even though analysts expected an uptick. At the same time, however, employers cut 20 000 jobs, more than the 5 000 economists expected, according to Thomson Reuters. The two numbers are calculated from different surveys.
Timothy Speiss, head of Eisner LLP's Personal Wealth Advisors group, said the improving unemployment rate was a good sign, but that investors are well aware that the problems in the economy that have stocks falling in recent weeks are still there.
The jobs report came as more troubling news emerged in Europe that Portugal and other weak economies were falling behind in their efforts to control their deficits.
Portugal's opposition parties defeated a government austerity plan Friday and passed their own bill allowing the country's autonomous regions to rack up even more debt. That raised new questions about European countries' ability to control their swollen budget deficits, which are undermining faith in the region's euro currency. Greece and Spain are also grappling with massive budget deficits.
The worries about Europe are another bullet point for investors who for weeks have been concerned in recent weeks about China's efforts to keep growth in check as well as plans in Washington to place more restrictions on big banks.
The late-day turnaround may have been the result of a defensive move by short sellers, or investors who bet that a stock will fall in value, said Christian Bendixen, director of technical research at Bay Crest Partners in New York.
When stocks turn higher, short sellers can be pressured to quickly unwind their positions to limit future losses. To do that, they have to buy shares, which can push the stock price up even more in what's known as a "short squeeze".
"I think there was a little bit of a short squeeze," Bendixen said. "People started getting nervous that the selloff was too quick. They went from extremely bullish to extremely bearish."
Still, Bendixen said many investors dumped risky assets heading into the weekend amid worries about the global economy, including growing fears of a debt crisis in Europe.
"It almost feels a little bit like 2008 when no one wanted to hold risk over the weekend because you didn't know what news would come out on Monday," he said.
- AP