Wall Street ends flat: Dow down 34 points

ALSO READ See how Asian markets are doing

It was a choppy and listless session on Wall Street yesterday. The Dow capped another down week with a loss  as investors shrugged off a surge in consumer sentiment. Techs gained after encouraging earnings from palm. Financial stocks made a modest rally into the close after spending nearly the entire session showing weakness.

The Dow was down 34.01 points, or 0.40%, to 8,438.39. But the S&P 500 index slid1.36 points , to 918.90. The Nasdaq composite index rose 8.68 points, or 0.47%, to 1,838.22. Also see How Indian ADR performed

 The Dow logged its second straight down week, shedding another 1.2%. The S&P's loss was much smaller for the week, about 0.3%, while the Nasdaq gained 0.6%.  At the close of Friday's session, the Dow lost 0.4% the S&P 500 fell 0.2%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.5%.  

The economic reports showed personal income and spending rising. Personal income for may saw a surprise jump, up 1.4%. Personal spending for may increased 0.3%, in line with expectations.  Personal consumption expenditures increased 0.1 percent month-over-month, as expected. However, the savings rate surged to its highest in 15 years.

In the commodity space, oil prices fell more than one dollar to close below 70 USD a barrel after the US stocks ended lower & indications that the economic recovery will be slow to gather strength. Crude ended trade at 69.44 dollars per barrel.