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Stocks narrowly miss having worst week in a year

A late rally Friday prevented the stock market from having its worst week in nearly a year. Investors seemed to largely ignore the debate in Washington over raising the country's borrowing limit. Troubling questions over Europe's financial health and manufacturing in the United States weighed down stock prices for much of the day.

    by By Daniel Wagner and David K. Randall, Associated Press, Inquirer
    Published 

A late rally Friday prevented the stock market from having its worst week in nearly a year.

Investors seemed to largely ignore the debate in Washington over raising the country's borrowing limit. Troubling questions over Europe's financial health and manufacturing in the United States weighed down stock prices for much of the day.

Google Inc. jumped nearly 13 percent, the most of any stock in the Standard and Poor's 500 index, after the company said its revenue hit a record last quarter.

The Dow Jones industrial average added 42.61, or 0.34 percent, to 12,479.73. The Nasdaq composite rose 27.13, or 0.98 percent, to 2,789.80. The Standard and Poor's 500 stock index finished with a gain of 7.27, or 0.56 percent, to 1,316.14. Most of the gains came in the last hour of trading.

The gains trimmed the S&P 500's weekly losses to 2.1 percent.

Energy stocks rose 2.4 percent after the Australian natural-resource giant BHP Billiton Ltd. said it would buy Petrohawk Energy Corp. for $12.1 billion, feeding speculation about which company might be the next takeover target.

Mattel Inc. rose nearly 2 percent after the company said its income jumped 56 percent in the second quarter, helped by strong demand for Barbie and Cars 2 toys. Clorox Co. jumped 9 percent after billionaire investor Carl Icahn offered to take the company private.

The Dow average fell 1.4 percent for the week, the Nasdaq 2.4 percent.