Stocks End Mixed After February Jobs Data

Wall Street ended another difficult week with an equally difficult session Friday: Stocks rose, fell, then clawed their way back to a mixed close after the Labor Department released its February jobs report.

But while the market finished well above its lows — the Dow Jones industrials had a modest gain after falling more than 120 points — many market watchers say there's no reason stocks can't slide further, even as the major indexes are near 12-year lows.

Big institutional investors are still largely waiting for positive signs from the economy before making any major commitments. As a result, the market is largely being driven by "short" traders, who sell borrowed stock and then buy it back later in hopes that the price will decline in the meantime. That makes for a choppy, unpredictable market — one that analysts expect to stay erratic for the forseeable future.

The Dow rose 32.50, or 0.5 percent, to 6,626.94. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 0.83, or 0.12 percent, to 683.38, while the Nasdaq composite index fell 5.74, or 0.44 percent, to 1,293.85.

With uncertainty about the economy and financial system keeping the bulk of investors out of the market, even small advances have been difficult to maintain.

And the market, analysts say, needs more clarity about the troubled financial sector before buyers come back into the market with any force. Until then, Engelke said, a sustainable advance is impossible.

"You can't have a healthy economy without a healthy banking system," he said.