Wall Street sees losses Friday, gains on week

The New York equities markets, beset by worries about higher yields on long-term bonds, were down at midday on Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite were each down by 0.8 percent, to 11,132.85 and 2,342.22 respectively. The S&P 500 had lost 0.9 percent to 1,297.68. Over the week, however, the Dow and the S&P each added 0.2 percent, while the Nasdaq was up 0.1 percent.

Miners helped the S&P as commodities prices rose to new highs. Copper miner Phelps Dodge was up 3.7 percent during the week to $83.50. Newmont Mining added 1.5 percent to $52.68, while Alcoa advanced by 6.2 percent to $32.46.

The oil sector gained on higher oil prices, led by ConocoPhillips’ gain of 4.6 percent over the week to $66.06.

Computer-related stocks were up as well. Helped by the announcement of new software that will let Macintosh computers run the Microsoft Windows operating system, Apple Computer gained 9.7 percent on the week to $68.80. Search engine Google added 4.1 percent and rose back above the $400 level to $405.81.

In the telecommunications sector, Lucent added 2 percent this week to $3.11 and Alcatel was up 2.3 percent to $15.75 after the two companies announced their merger.

Losers on the week included Merck. The pharmaceuticals company was hurt by a court decision ordering it to pay $4.5 million in compensation to a man for harm due to side effects of its drug Vioxx. Merck dropped 2.3 percent to $34.41.

Automakers General Motors and Ford Motor were also down. GM lost 9 percent on the week to $19.36 on an ongoing dispute with parts supplier Delphi and on the news that first-quarter sales were down by 14 percent. Ford declined by 4.8 percent to $7.58, also on lower sales.

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