Wall Street ends mixed, Apple becomes huge drag

U.S. stocks ended mixed on Friday even after a positive November jobs report as a new round of sell- off in Apple shares dragged on the market. When the market closed, the Dow Jones industrial average jumped 81.09 points, or 0.62 percent, to 13,155.13. The Standard & Poor's 500 rose 4.13 points, or 0.29 percent, to 1,418.07. The Nasdaq Composite Index fell 11.23 points, or 0.38 percent, to 2,978.04. For the week, the blue-chip Dow gained about 1 percent. The broader S&P 500 was basically unchanged while the tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped more than 1 percent. Apple became a huge drag on the Nasdaq this week, with the tech heavyweight tumbling about 9 percent for the past week. After plunging an astonishing 6.43 percent, the biggest one-day decline since December 2008, on Wednesday, Apple sank another 2.56 percent on Friday, forming a "death cross," with the 50-day moving average falling below the 200 day moving average. Technicians usually see the sign as a cue to sell. After Friday's decline, Apple has shed nearly 25 percent from its all-time high of 705.07 dollars, but still up more than 30 percent for the year. In earlier trading, major indexes got a boost after the Labor Department said that the U.S. economy added 146,000 jobs in November. According to the report, the U.S. unemployment rate in November fell to 7.7 percent, the lowest in four years. However, the optimism was tampered after data showed confidence among American consumers fell more than expected in December, reaching a four-month low as Americans grew concerned about the possibility of higher taxes next year. According to the Thomson Reuters and the University of Michigan, its preliminary consumer sentiment index decreased to 74.5 this month from 82.7 in November. Investors continued to keep a close watch on the developments in Washington. House Speaker John Boehner said on Friday that there was no progress in the debt talks. He also accused the White House of enacting a deliberate strategy of "slow-walking" the economy toward the fiscal cliff, a series of tax hikes and government spending cuts that will drag the country back to another recession. However, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi blamed Republicans for not acting on a bill that's cleared the Senate. In other markets, the U.S. dollar traded mixed on Friday against major currencies while crude prices pared earlier gains and ended lower. Light, sweet crude for January delivery lost 33 cents, or 0.38 percent, to settle at 85.93 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. For this week, it dropped sharply by 2.98 dollars, or 3.35 percent.