Stocks Mostly Listless; Dow Edges Down

Stocks were little changed Friday as a slowdown in retail sales and profit warnings from Lucent Technologies and Tyco International kept investors from building on earlier gains. The major indexes finished the week with modest gains.

Better-than-expected wholesale inflation figures gave Wall Street some hope of extending its new year’s advance. Michael Sheldon, chief market strategist at Spencer Clarke, attributed the listless trading mostly to an overbought market after stocks surged to 4 1/2 -year highs this week.

Coupled with lackluster earnings from Alcoa and DuPont earlier in the week, “investors face an uphill battle in trying to push stock prices higher,” Sheldon said.

“Overall, the tone of the market remains positive, but we could easily see a bit of profit taking or consolidation before stocks start to head higher again later this month.”

The Dow lost 2.49 points, or 0.02%, to 10,959.87. This week, the Dow topped 11,000 for the first time since June 2001, closing Wednesday at a 4 1/2 -year high of 11,043.44.

Broader stock indicators were off multiyear highs reached this week. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index finished up 1.55 points, or 0.1%, at 1,287.61, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 0.35 of a point, or 0.02%, to 2,317.04.

For the week, the Dow added 0.01%, the S&P; 500 gained 0.2% and Nasdaq was up 0.5%.

Long-term bond yields fell on the economic news, which eased inflation fears. The 10-year U.S. Treasury note sank to 4.35% from 4.41% on Thursday.

The Labor Department said its core producer price index grew just 0.1% in December, less than the 0.2% rise forecast by economists. Although overall growth in producer prices surged 0.9%, traders were probably comforted by a second straight monthly decline in crude material prices, Sheldon said.

The inflation data -- a precursor to consumer-level increases -- tempered a drop in monthly retail sales growth, which slowed to 0.7% and missed economists’ forecast gain of 1%, the Commerce Department said.

Over the next several weeks, investors will be focused on quarterly earnings while keeping a close watch on the Federal Reserve’s actions at its Jan. 31 meeting, said Jack Caffrey of JPMorgan Private Bank.

“It’s not just what you deliver, but what your future is likely to hold,” Caffrey said of the earnings reports. “I feel like there is a lot of one-time noise in earnings. That’s going to create volatility for some stocks.”

A barrel of light crude fell 2 cents to settle at $63.92 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, and gold futures climbed $7.80 an ounce to $556.10.

U.S. financial markets will be closed Monday for Martin Luther King Day.

In other highlights Friday:

* Lucent fell 6 cents to $2.65 after saying its annual revenue growth would be slower than forecast because of lagging sales.

* Tyco confirmed a rumored move to split its security, electronics and healthcare businesses into three public units, but it warned that its first-quarter and yearly earnings would miss estimates. Its shares sank $3.19 to $27.12.

* Hospital operator HCA gained $1.75 to $50.94 after saying its fourth-quarter profit could top current Wall Street estimates.

* Hewlett-Packard rose 88 cents to $31.90 after Goldman Sachs Group raised its recommendation on the stock to “outperform” from “in-line.” The company’s businesses are all doing better, and margins will increase more than current estimates, Goldman said.

* IBM dropped 40 cents to $83.17. The company said after trading Thursday that the Securities and Exchange Commission escalated a probe into the company’s first-quarter earnings.

* Nektar Therapeutics rose $1.89 to $20 after Pfizer paid $1.3 billion to remove Sanofi-Aventis from a joint venture developing inhaled insulin for diabetes, leaving Nektar as its sole partner. Pfizer gained 9 cents to $24.67.