Stocks close higher Friday but down for the week
NEW YORK — Stocks moved higher Friday on Wall Street, but investors remained focused on Washington, where a partial government shutdown and a fast approaching deadline on the nation's borrowing limit have weighed on markets all week.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 76.10 points, or 0.5%, to 15,072.58 and the Standard & Poor's 500 index gained 11.84 points, or 0.7%, to 1,690.50. The Nasdaq composite index rose 33.41, or 0.9%, to 3,807.75.
Despite Friday's modest gains, the trend for the last three weeks in the stock market has been lower. The Dow is down nearly 3% since hitting an all-time high on Sept. 18.
For the week, the Dow fell 1.2% and the S&P 500 dipped 0.1%..
Washington appears no closer to resolving the government shutdown or the looming deadline later this month to increase the government's borrowing limit so it can continue to pay its bills.
Under normal circumstances, investors would have the closely watched jobs report to parse through. But the shutdown has forced the Labor Department to postpone the release of September's data for at least the foreseeable future.
Parts of the bond market are starting to show stress as the Oct. 17 debt ceiling deadline nears. Yields for the one-month T-bill that mature around the time the U.S. government is expected to hit its borrowing limit have risen to their highest level in a year. The yield on one-month T-bill was 0.14%, up sharply from 0.01% five days ago.
Bond market observers said that fund managers for money market funds, who primarily invest in these types of securities, have been selling short-term Treasuries. Fund managers don't want to be stuck holding U.S. government debt maturing around the time the federal government hits its borrowing limit.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.65% from 2.61% late Thursday.
In corporate news, shares of the sandwich chain Potbelly soared on their first day of trading following its $105 million initial public offering. Potbelly, trading under the stock ticker "PBPB," jumped $17.22, or 123%, to $31.19.
Railroad company CSX fell 14 cents, or 0.5% after an analyst cut his rating on the stock, uncertainty over demand for coal.