Wall Street ended a busy week with a mixed performance Friday.
Technology stocks generally rose, but the principal blue-chip indicator, the Dow Jones industrial average, pulled back from Thursday’s record close, led lower by AT&T.
The Dow lost 37.51 points, to 10,689.67, on moderate New York Stock Exchange volume of 741 million shares. For the week, however, the Dow continued its sizzling April pace, rising 195.78, or 1.9 percent, bringing its gain for the month to more than 900 points.
AT&T lost $3.37, or 5.9 percent, to $53.37, after the telecommunications giant announced a $58 billion bid to acquire cable TV operator MediaOne Group.
But another Dow member, International Business Machines, continued to advance in the afterglow of its upbeat earnings report Wednesday. IBM gained $5.25, to $199.75, after hitting a record high $206.56 during the session.
Among broad indexes, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index slipped 1.97, to 1356.85, although winning stocks edged losers by about a 15-14 ratio among NYSE-listed stocks. For the week, the S&P index climbed 37.85, or 2.9 percent.
The technology-dominated Nasdaq composite index on Friday rose 29.08, or 1.1 percent, to 2590.69. The index, which suffered its second-biggest point drop ever Monday, immediately shook it off and bounced back so strongly the next four days that it posted a gain for the week, climbing 106.65, or 4.3 percent.
Once again, smaller-capitalization issues continued to advance Friday. The Russell 2000 index of such stocks rose 2.88, to 431.73, bringing its total gain for the week to 10.15, or 2.4 percent.
Meanwhile, Treasury bonds ended mixed in light trading. The yield on the 30-year bond was unchanged from late Thursday at 5.60 percent.
Among stocks of Chicago-area companies Friday, Playboy Enterprises rose $1.62, or 5 percent, to $33.12, on top of its $4.50 jump Thursday. The Chicago-based entertainment and publishing company has said it knew of no reason for the stock’s rise, but trade rumors have circulated that Playboy eventually will spin off part of its operations.
Morton International gained $1, to $38.69, after Rohm & Haas simplified its more than $6 billion offer for the Chicago-based chemical and salt producer. Stock in the Philadelphia-based chemical company also climbed, rising $1.75, to $40.50.
For the rebound in technology stocks, “You have to give credit . . . to the market’s backbone, the Internet stocks,” said Bryan Piskorowski, market analyst at Prudential Securities.
Among such issues, Amazon.com jumped $20.06, to $210.12, and eBay added $28.12, to $200.12. in Nasdaq trading.
But a good profit report failed to help Merck, which fell $2.12, to $75.75. The drugmaker posted first-quarter earnings that, as expected, showed growth over year-earlier performance.
And Mobil fell 44 cents, to $99.87, even though the oil company’s first-quarter performance proved to be not as dismal as some analysts were anticipating. Oil stocks generally were lower as crude-oil futures, which had climbed above $18 per barrel Thursday, pulled back.
In foreign stock markets, the Nikkei 225 index in Tokyo rose 1.54 percent on hopes for more government measures to stimulate the economy.
