US stocks ended little changed on Friday, losing ground late after Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen's comments on the economy unnerved investors.
Yellen, in a speech at a conference of policymakers and academics, laid out the deepening concern at the Fed that U.S. economic potential is slipping - and may need aggressive steps to rebuild it.
The S&P 500 financial index was up 0.5 per cent. JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup trounced third-quarter estimates. Wells Fargo & Co barely beat expectations as a sales scandal engulfed the bank.
Shares of JPMorgan ended down 0.3 per cent, however, while Citigroup ended up 0.3 per cent and Wells Fargo was down 0.1 per cent.
The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 39.44 points, or 0.22 per cent, to 18,138.38, the S&P 500 gained 0.43 points, or 0.02 per cent, to 2,132.98 and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.83 points, or 0.02 per cent, to 5,214.16.
For the week, the Dow was down 0.6 per cent, the S&P 500 was down 1.0 per cent and the Nasdaq fell 1.5 per cent.
Shares of Twitter fell 5.1 per cent to $16.88 after Salesforce.com's chief executive ruled out bidding for Twitter. Salesforce.com shares jumped 5.2 per cent to $74.27.
HP Inc fell 4.4 per cent to $14.48 after the company said it would cut about 3,000 to 4,000 jobs over the next three years.
About 6.0 billion shares changed hands on US exchanges, below the 6.6 billion daily average for the past 20 trading days.
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1.03-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.07-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted 3 new 52-week highs and 3 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 27 new highs and 80 new lows, according to Reuters.
-SRS-
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