Friday's Market Wrap: Major Averages Little Changed, Dow Falls

The U.S. stock market was little changed to end the week. The Dow recorded minor losses while the Nasdaq and S&P 500 rose marginally.

Stock gainers included DigitalGlobe DGI, which jumped almost 17 percent on a strong earnings report, and B&G Foods, Inc.BGS which added 13 percent after its Q2 report. Shares of Western Digital WDC lost more than 11 percent after its quarterly earnings results disappointed Wall Street.

Major Averages

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell around 24 points, or 0.13 percent, to 18,432 on the day.

The S&P 500 a little better than 3 points, or 0.16 percent, to finish the session at 2,174.

The Nasdaq climbed a little better than 7 points, 0r 0.14 percent, to 5,162.

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Chicago PMI

The Chicago PMI number for July was 55.8, which compares to a prior reading of 56.8 and consensus estimates of 54.0.

Consumer Sentiment

The final Michigan Consumer Sentiment reading was 90.0 for July compared to a prior reading of 93.5 and consensus estimates of 90.4.

Commodities

The commodity complex was higher on Friday, with the Bloomberg Commodity Index rising better than 1 percent.

NYMEX crude oil futures rose 0.83 percent to $41.48 on the session, while Brent contracts fell 0.56 percent to $42.46.

Precious metals traded higher. COMEX gold futures were last up 1.27 percent to $1,358.30. The SPDR Gold Trust ETF GLD added 1 percent to $128.98. Silver futures gained 1.03 percent on the day to $20.40. The iShares Silver Trust ETF SLV traded up 0.73 percent to $19.35.

In the grains complex, corn and wheat were mixed on the session. Corn futures closed out the week with a gain of 1.18 percent to $3.4275 while wheat futures lost 0.61 percent to $4.0775.

Bonds

Treasury prices were higher on Friday. At the close of equities, the iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF TLT was up 0.83 percent to $141.56.

Treasury yields were as follows on Friday afternoon: The yield on the 2-Year Note was 0.67 percent. The 5-Year Note was yielding 1.29 percent. The 10-Year Note was last yielding 1.46 percent while the 30-Year Bond yield was 2.18 percent.

Currencies

The U.S. Dollar was significantly lower on Friday. The PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish ETF UUP, which tracks the performance of the greenback versus a basket of foreign currencies, fell 1.36 percent to $24.67. The closely watched EUR/USD pair climbed 0.91 percent to 1.1178 euros.

Volatility And Volume

The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) was sharply lower on the session, falling almost 7 percent to 11.87. The 52-week range in the VIX is 10.88 to 53.29.

Volume was lighter than normal on Friday with around 78 million shares of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF SPY trading hands versus a 3-month daily average of just under 98 million shares. Trading in the PowerShares QQQ Trust QQQ was also below average with around 21 million shares trading hands compared to a 3-month daily average of 25 million.