Major U.S. stock indexes finished little changed Friday after a day of mostly quiet trading capped the S&P 500’s second straight weekly gain.
The market shook off an early stumble thanks largely to gains in health care stocks, makers of consumer products and retailers. Technology, communications and utilities stocks fell, as did bond yields and gold prices.
Facebook dropped 1.8% after New York’s attorney general announced an antitrust investigation into the company.
Traders had a muted reaction to new data showing that U.S. employers added fewer than expected jobs in August. The report also indicated more people entered the workforce last month, wages rose more than expected and the unemployment rate remained near the lowest level in five decades.
The jobs report was the latest in a mixed batch of economic data that investors scrutinized this week in search of clues about how the economy is weathering the costly trade war between the U.S. and China. Their concern: tariffs that each side has imposed on billions of goods may be dampening global economic growth and threatening to nudge the United States into a recession.