STOCKS GO NOWHERE: Here's what you need to know
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Stocks closed little changed on Friday.
Even after flattening out in March, the S&P 500 ended the first quarter with a 5% gain.
Goldman Sachs is among the worst performers on the Dow Jones industrial average this year, sliding with other financial stocks in March as the health care bill's failure cast doubt on other promised reforms.
Here's the scoreboard:
- Dow: 20,663.22, -65.27, (-0.31%)
- S&P 500: 2,362.72, -5.34, (-0.23%)
- Nasdaq: 5,911.74, -2.61, (-0.04%)
- The Federal Reserve's preferred measure of inflation hit its 2% target for the first time in nearly five years. The personal consumption expenditures deflator — a measure of prices — increased by 2.1% year-on-year in February, according to the Commerce Department.
- Consumer confidence unexpectedly fell in March, according to the final report from the University of Michigan. The consumer sentiment index fell to 96.9. Democrats expected an imminent recession while Republicans anticipated a new era of robust growth in incomes and job prospects.
- Big data startup Cloudera plans to raise $200 million in an IPO. Cloudera, founded in 2008, offers software and services that let businesses store massive amounts of data on inexpensive hardware.
- BlackBerry reported better-than-expected quarterly earnings, as operating costs nearly halved, and said it expects to be profitable on an adjusted basis in 2018. The company's US-listed shares rose 12%.
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