Stocks Slip but Still End the Week Higher

US stocks edged back from their all-time high as they closed out a second straight winning week.

• The Dow fell 140.82 points, or 0.3%, to 44,424.25, but closed up 2.2% for the week.
• The S&P 500 fell 17.47 points, or 0.3%, to 6,101.24, ending the week 1.7% higher.
• The Nasdaq composite fell 99.38 points, or 0.5%, to 19,954.30.

Trading was quiet through the day, aided by relative steadiness in the bond market, which has been driving much of the action on Wall Street lately, the AP reports. When worries about inflation and the federal government's swelling debt have been on the rise, Treasury yields have climbed and helped knock down stock prices. When concerns ebb, such as after last week's encouraging update on inflation, yields have eased and helped stocks rise.
A mostly encouraging start to the earnings reporting season for big US companies has also helped prop up the stock market. Even if higher Treasury yields are pushing downward on their stock prices, companies can make up for it by delivering bigger profits.

Texas Instruments fell 7.5% despite reporting profit for the latest quarter that topped analysts' expectations. In a sign of how much pressure is on companies to keep growing, analysts focused on discouraging signals of how much profit the company is likely to make from each $1 of revenue during the first three months of 2025. That helped drag down stocks across the semiconductor industry. CSX sank 2.9% even though the railroad delivered a profit for the latest quarter that matched analysts' expectations. Its revenue for the last three months of 2024 just missed analysts' forecasts as it dealt with the effects of hurricanes. On the winning side of Wall Street were Novo Nordisk's US-listed shares, which jumped 8.5%. The Danish company reported results from a clinical trial of a treatment for people who are overweight or obese, which could mean bigger profits in the future. NextEra Energy climbed 5.2% after the owner of the Florida Power & Light utility reported profit slightly above expectations. (More Wall Street stories.)