The U.S. stock market concluded its worst week of 2013 on Friday with all three major indexes dropping more than 2 percent. Some major quarterly earnings reports Friday were quite surprising, but they offered no evidence about the health of U.S. corporations. In U.S. economic news, unemployment fell in 26 of the 50 U.S. states last month, but most of the declines were due to people quitting job searches rather than an improving labor market. The U.S. dollar rose versus the yen and fell versus the euro. Light sweet crude futures rose 0.3 percent to about $88 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold futures rose 0.4 percent to just above $1,400 an ounce. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 10.37, or less than 0.1 percent, to 14,547.51. Shares of IBM, which carry the heaviest weighting on the index, dropped more than 6 percent following weak quarterly results. General Electric (GE) unnerved investors by noting its big backlog of equipment and services, and its stock fell 4 percent. Shares of McDonald's fell after the fast-food giant reported a drop in global sales. Appliance maker and defense contractor Honeywell reported an increase in first-quarter profit, and its stock rose 4 percent. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 13.64, or 0.9 percent, to 1,555.25. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index rose 39.70, or 1.25 percent, to 3,206.06. Microsoft and Google stock rose 3.4 percent and 4.4 percent respectively after the technology giants reported positive quarterly results. Shares of Apple, which have been plunging lately, closed slightly lower, hitting another new 52-week low. Dell stock fell more than 3 percent following reports that Blackstone had dropped its bid to buy the personal-computer (PC) maker.
