Facebook fails to buoy market

NEW YORK – U.S. stocks chalked up another weekly loss, with Facebook Inc.’s debut on Wall Street on Friday failing to live up to the hype and on concerns about prospects for global growth.

“Everyone’s attention is on Europe, but the larger theme is investors are now scared about where growth is going to come from,” John De Clue, regional investment director, U.S. Bank Wealth management in Minneapolis.

“The only thing moving up is the U.S. dollar. Generally when things are firing on all cylinders you see a weaker dollar,” he added.

The Dow Jones industrial average slid 73.11 points, or 0.3 percent, to 12,369.38.

The Dow has now declined 12 out of the last 13 trading days, and is now down 6.4 percent for the month after taking a weekly hit of 3.5 percent.

Down 4.3 percent for the week, the S&P 500 retreated 9.64 points, or 0.7 percent, to 1,295.22, with the health-care sector the greatest laggard and telecommunications performing best among its 10 industry groups.

Yahoo Inc. shares rose after the AllThingsD website reported the company would sell half of its 40 percent stake in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. back to the Chinese company for $7 billion.

Facebook shares were up 0.6 percent in their trading debut on the Nasdaq.

“Normally things with such a frenzy about them open more spectacularly than we’ve seen. It is garnering a lot of retail attention, but I don’t know how long that will linger,” said Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott.

Notables risers also included Salesforce.com Inc., up 8.8 percent, after the maker of online solutions reported better-than-expected earnings and hiked its 2012 outlook.

The Nasdaq composite lost 34.90 points, or 1.2 percent, to 2,778.79, leaving it down 5.3 percent.

For every stock rising more than three fell on the New York Stock Exchange, where nearly 1.2 billion shares traded. Composite volume neared 4.5 billion.