- Consumer staples lead the gains on Friday.
- Rising oil production in the U.S. weighs on the energy sector.
- Nasdaq records losses for the week.
After starting the day higher and preserving the momentum for the first couple of hours of the session, major equity indexes in the U.S. lost their traction and failed to end the week on a positive note.
Boosted by the sharp upsurge on Procter & Gamble shares on the back of strong sales figures, the S&P 500 Consumer Staples Index gained 2.3% on a daily basis to become the best performing sector. Moreover, the so-called defensive S&P 500 Utilities and Real Estate indexes added 1.58% and 1%, respectively, amid a lack of headlines that would ease concerns over the potential negative impact of political tensions in Saudi Arabia and the ongoing trade conflict with China.
On the other hand, risk-sensitive S&P 500 Technolgy and Communications Services pared their daily gains to end the day virtually unchanged. Additionally, after today's data from the United States showed that the total number of active oil rigs rose to 873 this week, crude oil prices failed to make a decisive recovery and the S&P 500 Energy Index slipped 0.8%.
"When companies like (Procter & Gamble) give good earnings and provide good guidance, that's a good thing for the market overall," J.J. Kinahan, chief market strategist at TD Ameritrade in Chicago, told Reuters on Friday.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 64.89 points, or 0.26%, to 25,444.34, the S&P 500 closed flat at 2,767.78 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 36.11 points, or 0.48%, to 7,449.03. For the week, the DJIA and the S&P 500 gained 0.4% and 0.02%, respectively while Nasdaq erased 0.6%.
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