Stocks Ended Lower on Uncertainty Over Syria

U.S. stocks closed lower on Friday, with the S&P 500 index recording its steepest monthly drop since May 2012, as Wall Street considered a possible U.S. strike against Syria. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 30.64 points or
0.21%, at 14,810.31. The S&P 500 index was off 5.20 point, or 0.32%, to 1,632.97. The Nasdaq Composite fell 30.43 points, or 0.84%, to 3,589.87. For the week, the Dow fell 1.3 percent, the S&P 500 lost 1.8 percent and the Nasdaq
declined 1.9 percent. For the month, the Dow fell 4.4 percent, the S&P 500 was down 3.1 percent and the Nasdaq was off 1 percent.

U.S. consumer sentiment retreated in August from last month’s six-year high. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan’s final reading on the overall index on consumer sentiment slipped to 82.1 in August from 85.1 in July.

A federal judge said the U.S. government’s lawsuit to block the proposed merger of American Airlines and US Airways will start Nov. 25, a timetable favored by the airlines.

Gold prices fell on Friday as traders headed to the sidelines ahead of a long U.S. holiday weekend with the threat of U.S. The most actively traded contract, for December delivery, fell $16.80, or 1.2%, to settle at $1,396.10 a troy ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose 6.3% in August.