Stocks Post Weekly Loss

U.S. stocks slumped on Friday, putting the S&P 500 on track for its third straight weekly decline, as a robust dollar threatened to erode the profits of multinationals and tumbling crude oil prices pressured energy shares. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 145.91 points, or 0.82%, to 17,749.31 and recorded a 0.6% loss over the week. The S&P 500 shed 12.55 points, or 0.61%, to 2,053.40 and lost 0.9% over the week. The Nasdaq Composite was down 21.53 points, or
0.44%, to 4,871.76 and lost 1.1% over the week.

World oil prices sank Friday after the International Energy Agency warned over the price outlook amid bulging global supplies. US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for April shed 72 cents to $46.33 a barrel.

The Energy Department on Friday announced it was buying up to five million barrels of oil for the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve, a federally owned stockpile of oil that is available in case of an emergency or sudden disruption in oil supply.

The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index dropped to 91.2 in March from 95.4 in February, falling below the 94.8 seen in a MarketWatch-compiled economist forecast. That’s the worst reading since November.