NEW YORK -- U.S. stock markets ended nominally lower Friday, ending a losing week where a drought of weighty economic news to guide investors amid the U.S. central bank's inflation war left buyers edgy about equity valuations.
The Nasdaq Composite Index , under siege amid the Federal Reserve Bank's series of interest rate hikes, unofficially finished barely lower, down 0.24 point at 3,205.11. For the week, it was off 185 points.
The Dow Jones industrial average slipped 24.68 points, or 0.24 percent, to 10,299.24. For the week, the Dow fell 328 points.
Extremely light trading volume Friday caused by the start of the three-day Memorial Day weekend compounded investor ennui in the face of no real corporate or economic news. Meanwhile, the next Fed meeting to consider interest rates is one month away.
"Nothing, zero, nada is going on," said Charles Payne, head analysts at independent market research firm Wall Street Strategies. "This is really like watching paint dry. It's the holiday and the fact that Friday's have been notoriously bad. Nobody's taking stock home over the weekend."
"The only thing I really liked about this session was how the market fought back from the lows," Payne said. "Any other day this week, we would have sunk so that's a good sign."
Before the start of trade, a minor economic reading was released by the government.
The U.S. Commerce Department reported that orders for big ticket items dropped in April while an increase had been expected, but personal spending rose by a larger-than-forecast amount.
Although the durable goods number could suggest some slowing in the economy, analysts warned that the data is very volatile.
Personal spending, which was Friday's most looked-at figure since consumption is the main driver of the economy, rose 0.4 percent in April. Economists surveyed by Reuters had expected only a 0.3 percent rise.
"What the numbers say is that there are faint glimmers of hope," said Hugh Johnson, chief investment officer at First Albany Corp. "But they are very faint and are not likely to be major market movers."
Among the day's major losers, Office Depot (ODP) was rocked to a new 12-month low, ending with a 30 percent loss, or 3-1/8, to 7-5/16 after the retailer warned that its quarterly earnings would come in under Wall Street expectations.
Other retailers suffered, cutting 2.1 percent off the Standard & Poor's Retail index.
