Stocks see biggest weekly decline of year

By msnbc.com news services

Stocks finished mostly higher Friday as rising energy shares offset early weakness in the market, but both the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones industrial average saw their biggest weekly decline of the year.

Equities fell early after data showed a drop in single-family home sales, but a rebound in energy and material shares from their slump in the previous session, helped Wall Street overcome those losses. A rise in crude oil prices gave upside support to the energy sector.

The benchmark S&P 500 is down over 1 percent for the week, though it remains up 10 percent for the year and up more than 25 percent from its October closing low.

It was the worst stock market performance since Dec. 16, CNBC said.

While the swiftness of those gains have some investors waiting for further declines, many analysts do not see this week as the start of a deeper pullback. Instead, some are looking for a boost next week from quarter-end "window dressing," when fund managers drop poor-performing stocks and chase the better-performing ones.

"Overall, people feel good about stocks, so people want to jump in and buy on dips like we saw yesterday," said Michael Matousek, senior trader at U.S. Global Investors Inc, which manages about $3 billion in San Antonio. "They're afraid of missing the boat so they focus on things that have lagged."

Another catalyst for Friday's rebound in basic resources stocks was news that the world's top copper producer, Chile's Codelco, had reported a surge in profits and an increase in production. In Thursday's decline, both the energy and materials sector indexes fell more than 1.5 percent.

Crude oil futures prices rose on news that tightening Western sanctions had caused Iranian oil exports to fall significantly this month.

Home sales fell 1.6 percent in February, Commerce Department data showed, although a climb in prices kept optimism intact that the industry may have hit its bottom.

"We're continuing to get mixed messages out of the housing market," said Rob Morgan, chief investment strategist at Fulcrum Securities in Philadelphia. "Even though these numbers are in line, they're well short of what a healthy market would be."

KB Home tumbled after the fifth-largest U.S. homebuilder posted a wider first-quarter loss and said orders for new homes declined. Fellow homebuilder Beazer Homes fell.

Zynga Inc declined after the online games maker said shareholders will sell about 43 million shares in a secondary offering.

Job search website Monster Worldwide Inc is open to selling all or part of itself and expects to have data ready for potential buyers soon, its chief executive said in an interview.

Nike Inc posted higher quarterly profit late Thursday as the sportswear retailer headed into the spring season with strong demand.

Darden Restaurants Inc sank after it posted higher third-quarter profit, boosted by increased sales at its Olive Garden chain.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Source: http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/23/10832185-stocks-see-biggest-weekly-decline-of-year

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