At midday on Friday, the New York equities markets were looking at a losing week, sent down primarily by news from Microsoft. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.2 percent on the week to 11,372.1 by the middle of the session, after having hit a six-year high earlier in the day. The Nasdaq Composite, meanwhile, had accumulated a loss for the week of 0.7 percent to 2,326.28, while the S&P 500 was flat at 1,311.92.
Microsoft dropped 11 percent during the morning on Friday, bringing the week’s loss to 10.6 percent with its share price at $24.27. This loss came despite the fact that its quarterly report shoed a rise in profits of 16 percent, as the company also announced that earnings would be lower than anticipated in the second half of the year due to increased investments.
Banks were up on the week, with the S&P banking index seeing a gain of 2.5 percent over the five sessions.
Bank of America added 6.4 percent over the week to $49.88, its highest share price ever, after it said that it could spend as much as $12 billion in the next year and a half in a stock buyback involving as many as 20 million shares.
Elsewhere in the sector, Citigroup was up 3.5 percent on the week to $49.69. The gains came on an upgrade from Piper Jaffray, which raised its recommendation on the bank from “market perform” to “outperform” and upped its target share price from $52 to $55.