Juice production line finishes below 12,000 for 1st time since March

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Stocks capped a difficult week with steep lossesFriday amid escalating worries about the financial and automotivesectors and a rebound in oil prices. The major indexes fell by morethan 1 1/2 percent on the day, and the Dow Jones industrial averagegave up more than 200 points to end at its lowest level in threemonths.

While investors have seen other triple-digit days in the past yearsince concerns about the economy began emerging, the Dow's firstfinish under 12,000 since mid-March could deal Wall Street apsychological blow.

An afternoon downgrade of automakers helped draw out sellers in thestock market while Treasury prices rose as investors sought thesafety of government debt.
A Merrill Lynch downgrade of regional banks added to the market'sinitial anxiety, which ballooned Thursday when Citigroup Inc.warned of significant debt markdowns for the second quarter,Washington Mutual Inc. announced 1,200 job cuts and Moody'sInvestors Service decided late in the day to downgrade the twobiggest bond insurers.
Troubling news about the financial sector piled up all week,sending stocks to steep losses. Early on, the investment banksposted profit declines, Fifth Third Bancorp said it need to raise$2 billion in capital and two Bear Stearns hedge fund managers werecharged with lying to investors _ causing many investors to fleefrom stocks.

Quincy Krosby, chief investment strategist at The Hartford, saidFriday's session saw a confluence of the worries that investorshave been grappling with as they try to determine where the economyis headed.

"I liken it to the GPS system saying 'recalculating,'" she said,referring to the market's uncertainty. "There's no clarity, there'sno confidence."

Krosby added: "The crosscurrents are coming at a time when thebackdrop for the economy appears to be stabilizing. And yet theheadline risk is unrelenting."

The headlines Friday helped send the Dow down 220.40, or 1.83percent, to 11,842.69. The blue chips haven't closed below 12,000since March 17, when the market was worried about Bear Stearns Cos.collapsing. Friday's pullback left Coca Cola Co. as the onlyadvancer among the 30 stocks that comprise the Dow.

Broader stock indicators also dropped. The Standard & Poor's 500index fell 24.90, or 1.85 percent, to 1,317.93, and the Nasdaqcomposite index fell 55.97, or 2.27 percent, to 2,406.09.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers by about 5 to 1 on the NewYork Stock Exchange, where consolidated volume came to a heavy 5.15billion shares compared with 4.44 billion shares traded Thursday.Volume was heavy in part because of "quadruple witching" _ thesimultaneous expiration of four types of options contracts.

For the week, the Dow fell 3.78 percent, the S&P 500 lost 3.1percent and the Nasdaq declined 1.97 percent.

Bond prices rose Friday as stocks sank. The yield on the benchmark10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, fell to 4.17percent from 4.21 percent late Thursday.

Concerns over further tensions between Israel and Iran added toinvestors' worries and pushed oil prices higher.

"That introduces dramatic uncertainty," Krosby said of theinvestors' reaction to unease in the Middle East.

Crude oil futures jumped $2.69 to settle at $134.62 a barrel on theNew York Mercantile Exchange, recovering some of Thursday's drop ofnearly $5 per barrel on news of a fuel price hike in China.

Investors are awaiting the weekend's meeting in Saudi Arabia of oilproducers and consumer nations, which could bring some relief tothe problem of soaring oil prices. But many analysts believe thegathering might end up being a mere finger-pointing session.

"There has to be reticence about getting back in," said StephenCarl, principal and head of equity trading at The Williams CapitalGroup. "It's definitely an ugly end to the week."

Bond insurer MBIA Inc. fell 86 cents, or 13 percent, to $5.59,while competitor Ambac Financial Group Inc. edged up 2 cents to$2.05, after losing their "AAA" rating from Moody's.

Another ratings move hit stocks of automakers. Standard & Poor'sRatings Services placed the corporate credit ratings of GeneralMotors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC on watch withnegative implications. The classification means ratings have aone-in-two chance of being downgraded in the next three months. S&Pbelieves high fuel costs will hurt the U.S. auto market through2009.

GM fell $1, or 6.7 percent, to $13.79, while Ford lost 51 cents, or8.1 percent, to $5.81.