July is ending with stocks' best month in a year

NEW YORK - Stocks had a fitting end to a choppy July as prices seesawed to a narrowly mixed finish. The market still had its best month in a year.

Investors had an ambivalent response Friday to the government's gross domestic product report, which showed that economic growth slowed in the April-June quarter. The Dow Jones industrial average fell almost 120 points in early trading, then ratcheted up and down until the close. The Commerce Department's GDP report followed recent reports on housing and unemployment that also showed the recovery has slowed. GDP grew at an annual pace of 2.4 percent in the second quarter, less than the 2.5 percent forecast of economists polled by Thomson Reuters.

Analysts said that as investors read deeper into the report, it didn't look as bad as they initially thought.

The Dow fell 1.22, or 0.01 percent, to 10,465.94.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 0.07, or 0.01 percent, to 1,101.60. It rose 6.9 percent for July, its best performance since it rose 7.4 percent in July 2009.

The Nasdaq composite index rose 3.01, or 0.13 percent, to 2,254.70.

Volume usually falls off in the summertime but stays strong during July. This July was particularly slow.

"The biggest crowds aren't on the trading floor, they are on the beach," said Jeffrey Frankel, president of Stuart Frankel & Co. "People don't want to be involved in the market now. One day they are up, one day they are down. Nothing is making any sense. That's why there is no volume."

Overseas markets mostly fell Friday after reports that Spain's credit rating was likely to be cut by Moody's Investors Service. The potential downgrade comes as the country's unemployment rate jumped to a 13-year high of 20.09 percent and the government continues to grapple with rising debt problems.

Spain's IBEX 35 fell 1.5 percent. Britain's FTSE 100 fell 1.1 percent, Germany's DAX index rose 0.2 percent, and France's CAC-40 fell 0.2 percent. Japan's Nikkei stock average fell 1.6 percent.