Another gloomy week for stock markets turned mixed Friday, with technology companies gaining ground as the rest of the market tried to fight its way back.
In afternoon trading, the Dow Jones industrial average had trimmed its early losses and was down 25 points while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was slightly higher. The Nasdaq composite index was up 1.3 percent, aided by Google, operator of the most popular Internet search engine, which jumped about 6 percent after reporting better than expected earnings after the market closed Thursday.
The upturn in stocks happened after a Senate committee announced parts of its stimulus plan and President Barack Obama pushed congressional leaders to reach a consensus on the $825 billion spending package.
Despite a litany of troubling corporate earnings reports and signs of deteriorating investor confidence, some analysts see an end to the carnage.
“We’re not at a bottom, but we’re in the bottoming process,” said Anthony Contry, head equity trader at BNY ConvergEx Group. “A lot of people look for that V-shaped bottom, but that’s not what we’re going to see. As we get some clarity in earnings, things are going to continue to get better.”
Stocks were poised to finish their third week in the red, wiping away any lingering optimism that greeted the start of 2009. The major indexes, which fell by a third or more in 2008, are down about 8 percent since the year’s start as concerns grow about the breadth of the year-long recession.
“It’s not a good omen,” said Bruce Bittles, chief investment strategist at Robert W. Baird. “It was felt that with last year’s declines, the market had really discounted a lot of bad news. And yet, the last three weeks we get bad news and the market goes down. It doesn’t react very well to good…