Wall Street Posts Worst Week Since June

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The markets fell deeper into the red on Friday, with telecommunications and utilities leading the way lower.

Today's Markets

As of 3:10 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 64.3 points, or 0.4%, to 15434, the S&P 500 dipped 4.6 points, or 0.28%, to 1693 and the Nasdaq Composite slumped 6.6 points, or 0.18%, to 3662.

Trading was light, but choppy on Friday. The telecommunications and utility sectors were the worst performers by far, meanwhile materials stocks bucked the downward trend and rallied.

"We are rather arbitrarily banging around in a range – we are down today despite some encouraging data out of China that is dominating the headlines even if it is seemingly being ignored action wise," said Michael Block, chief strategist at Rhino Trading Partners. Block called the recent action "yoyo" style.

On the economic front, wholesale inventories fell 0.2% in June, widely missing expectations of a 0.4% increase. The miss prompted numerous investment banks to pare back their forecasts for second-quarter growth. Indeed, economists at Barclays sliced their GDP estimate by 0.1 percentage point to 2.4% on the back of the data.

Elsewhere, BlackBerry (NASDAQ:BBRY) was said to be warming to the idea of going private, according to a report by Reuters, citing several people familiar with the matter.

Oil prices surged $2.57, or 2.5%, to $105.97 a barrel. Wholesale New York Harbor gasoline gained 1.8% to $2.91 a gallon. Gold advanced $2.30, or 0.18%, to $1,312 a troy ounce.

Foreign Markets

The Euro Stoxx 50 rose 0.02% to 2817, the English FTSE 100 gained 0.59% to 6567 and the German DAX climbed 0.13% to 8329.

In Asia, the Japanese Nikkei 225 ticked up 0.07% to 13615 and the Chinese Hang Seng advanced 0.7% to 21808.