Stocks show weekly advance after news of auto bailout
NEW YORK — Most stocks gained Friday, extending a second straight weekly advance, as President George W. Bush’s rescue plan for carmakers eased concerns about the industry’s collapse and the loss of jobs.
General Motors Corp. rallied 23 percent as Bush announced $13.4 billion in emergency loans for the largest U.S. automaker and rival Chrysler LLC. Ford Motor Co. rose 3.9 percent, while car parts supplier ArvinMeritor Inc. climbed 5.9 percent. The Dow Jones industrial average erased a 182-point advance as Citigroup Inc. slid 5.5 percent after its debt ratings were cut, while Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. retreated almost 3 percent as oil tumbled below $33 a barrel.
The Standard & Poors 500 index added 2.60, or 0.3 percent, to 887.88. The Dow fell 25.88 points, or 0.3 percent, to 8,579.11. The Nasdaq composite index gained 11.95, or 0.77 percent.
The S&P 500 extended its five-day gain to 0.9 percent, capping its first back-to-back weekly advance since September. The Dow slipped 0.6 percent in the week.
GM rallied 83 cents to $4.49, trimming its 2008 decline to 82 percent. Ford Motor Co. added 11 cents to $2.95.
ArvinMeritor climbed 19 cents to $3.42. BorgWarner Inc. climbed 4.4 percent to $21.79.
Citigroup Inc. fell 41 cents to $7.02. The bank’s senior debt was cut to A2 from Aa3.
Research In Motion Ltd pay day loan lenders. gained 11 percent to $42.83. The BlackBerry smart-phone maker forecast sales of $3.3 billion to $3.5 billion for the current quarter, topping estimates of $3 billion.
Oracle Corp. added 7 percent to $17.78.
Crude oil for January delivery fell $2.35, or 6.5 percent, to $33.87 a barrel in New York. Exxon shares fell 2.6 percent to $75.02, while Chevron declined 3 percent to $70.85.
Get more business news, blogs and opinionDarden Restaurants Inc. climbed 19 percent to $28.55.
Brinker International Inc., the owner of the Chilis Grill & Bar chain, rallied 30 percent, the most since the shares began trading in 1984, to $11.18, after its sale of Romano’s Macaroni Grill chain to Golden Capital was completed.
Weyerhaeuser Co. fell 9.5 percent to $33.59 after cutting its dividend by more than half.