Friday was a relatively flat day for the broad U.S. markets to close out a down week. Crude oil started off flat but pushed lower as the day went on. The S&P 500 sectors were more or less split down the middle, but the negatives outweighed the positives. The best performing sectors were consumer staples and consumer discretionary, up 1.1% and 0.4%, respectively. The worst performing sectors were health care, energy, and utilities down 0.7%, 0.6%, and 0.4%, respectively.
Crude oil was down 0.6% at $56.84.
Gold was down 0.9% at $1,276.30.
The S&P 500 stock posting the largest daily percentage loss ahead of the close Friday was Frontier Communications Corp. (NASDAQ: FTR) which traded down about 15% at $6.76. The stock’s 52-week range is $6.72 to $57.30. Volume was nearly 8 million versus the daily average of 2.9 million shares.
The stock posting the largest daily percentage gain in the S&P 500 ahead of the close Friday was News Corp. (NASDAQ: NWSA) which rose 5.5% to $15.15. The stock’s 52-week range is $11.42 to $15.79. Volume was about 5 million compared to its average volume of 1.7 million.
