The New York equities markets ended the week mixed as the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 0.04 percent to 11,347.45, but the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.83 percent to 2,342.86 and the S&P 500 dropped 0.01 percent to 1,311.28.
Quarterly earnings reports helped a number of companies during the week. 3M, which makes Post-It notes, was up 5 percent to $85.02 this week on a report of higher earnings. In the internet search engine sector, Yahoo added 6.9 percent during the week to $33.27 even though it’s earnings were down from the same quarter last year, when revenues and adjusted earnings were up to predictions. UBS raised Yahoo’s target share price from $39 to $42.
Google, meanwhile added 10 percent over the week to $442.56 after it reported that revenues had grown by 100 percent. This earned it several target share price hikes and Merrill Lynch upgraded the search engine from “neutral” to “buy”.
Still in internet-related companies, Ebay dropped 9.3 percent on the week to $35 after it did not improve its forecast for 2006.
Computer-maker Dell dropped 4 percent on Friday and 7.5 percent during the week to $27.15 on a downgrade from “buy” to “sell” from Citigroup.
In the automobile manufacturing sector, General Motors was up 8 percent on the week to $22.03 when it reported fewer losses in the quarter than had been expected, indicating to some analysts that it is recovering from recent troubles. Others, however, said that while production had increased, GM’s market share was declining. Elsewhere in the sector, Ford Motor dropped 6.3 percent on Friday on the report of a $1.2 billion loss in the first quarter. On the week, however, Ford added 1.4 percent and closed the week at $7.45.