Mixed session ends Street’s wild week

NEW YORK – Wall Street capped one of its worst weeks ever with a wild session Friday that saw the Dow Jones industrials gyrate within a 1,000-point range before closing with a relatively mild loss and the Nasdaq composite index actually ending with a modest advance.

The Dow lost 128 points, giving the blue chips an eight-day loss of just under 2,400, or 22.1 percent. The average had its worst week on record in both point and percentage terms. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index, the indicator most watched by market professionals, posted its worst weekly run since 1933.

The latest loss also means the Dow is down 40.3 percent since reaching a record high close of 14,164.53 a year ago, on Oct. 9, 2007. The S&P 500, which reached its high of 1,565.15 the same day, is down 42.5 percent.

Investors suffered a paper loss for the day of about $100 billion, as measured by the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 index. For the week, investors lost $2.4 trillion, and over the past year, the losses have piled up to $8.4 trillion.

But there were signs Friday that some investors believe the market is near a bottom. On Thursday, selling accelerated in the last hour of trading. The Dow was down 221 points at 3 p.m. but closed down 679 points an hour later. On Friday, the Dow was down 468 points at 3 but rocketed 790 points and was up 322 points just after 3:30. It then sold off but closed down only 128.

And the Russell 2000 index, which tracks the movements of smaller company stocks, had a 4.66 percent gain Friday; small-cap stocks are often first on investors’ shopping lists when they think a market turnaround is at hand.

Market index stats again told how horrific the run has been on Wall Street:

•The Dow lost 1,874.19 points, or 18.2 percent, during the week. Its dismal performance outdid the week that ended July 22, 1933, which saw a 17 percent drop – and back then, during the Great Depression, there were six trading days in a week.

•The Dow has fallen for eight straight sessions – the longest losing streak since the eight days of declines following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, when the blue chips lost 1,038.12, or 10.8 percent.

•It’s been the worst run for the Dow since the nearly two-year bear market that ended in December 1974 when the Dow lost 45 percent.

•Since hitting their record highs a year ago, the Dow has lost 5,713 points, or 40.3 percent, while the S&P 500 is off 665.90 points, or 42.5 percent.

Beyond the Dow, broader stock indicators were mixed Friday.

The S&P 500 index fell 18.2 percent for the week – its steepest decline since the week ending May 21, 1933; its worst loss was in 1929, when it fell 19.9 percent. The index lost 200.01 points for the week.

The Nasdaq composite index lost 297.88, or 15.3 percent, for the week.