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US stocks closes negative on the day but over 5% up in the month


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FXStreet (San Francisco) – Historically, January is a bad month for stocks and then, February starts the recovery… but this time it seems too much, or may be too good! Wall Street closed Friday with small losses but posted strong gains in the month, including a 7% gain in the Nasdaq.

February was a great month for the major averages that are around 2% up on the year with the Dow hitting new record closes for the first time in the year.


Most sectors finished Friday down for the day. Major losers were Technology (-0.58%), Health Care (-0.43%), and Industrial shares (-0.42%). To the upside, Consumer Staples (+0.26%), Telecomm (+0.17%) and Energy sectors (+0.16%) were the gainers.


The Telecommunication sector performed the best out of all sectors over the week with a gain total of 0.32%. Followed by Staples (+0.27%) and Discretionaries (+0.09%). Laggards on the week were Utilities (-1.77%), Energy (-0.96%), and Industrials (-0.91%).


On February, Materials (+6.79%), Technology (+5.42%) and Discretionaries (4.90%) were the leaders; while Utilities (-7.40%) was the only sector that posted losses in the month.


The Dow Jones fell 0.45% on Friday to 18,132.70; the DJIA declined 0.04% in the week; but rallied 5.64% in the month to be 1.74% positive YTD.


The S&P 500 declined 0.30% on the day to 2,104.50; the S&P finished the week with a 0.27% drop, the month with a 5.49% climb and it’s 2.21% positive YTD.


The Nasdaq, which is flirting with the 5,000 level, fell 0.49% on the session to 4,963.53; the Composite wrapped up the week 0.15% positive, the month with an impressive 7.08% gain in February that drove it 4.8% up YTD.


Small caps on the figure of the Russell 2000 closed the day 0.46% negative at 1,233.37; However it was 0.13% positive in the week, 5.83% up in the month and 2.38% YTD.