The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 166.44 points (0.48%) and amounted to 34584.88 points. Standard & Poor's 500 fell by 40.76 points (0.91%), that is, to 4432.99 points. The Nasdaq Composite lost 137.96 points (0.91%) to 15,043.97 points.
Over the past week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.1%, and the decline in the indicator was recorded for the fourth week in a row. This is the longest such period since September 2020.
The weekly decline in the S&P 500 was 0.6%, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.5%.
Dow Inc., Intel Corp. and 3M were the drop leaders among the Dow Jones on Friday. The Dow fell 2.9%, Intel fell 1%, 3M Co. dropped 0.6%.
Shares of investment company Invesco Ltd. increased in price by 5.5% by the end of trading. According to The Wall Street Journal, Invesco is planning a merger with the bank's State Street Corp. for asset management.
State Street fell 2.6%.
Trading in the US stock market has been quite volatile in recent days due to mixed economic signals, as well as uncertainty surrounding the spread of the new COVID-19 delta strain.
The chief analyst of Swissquote, Ipek Ozkardeskaya, noted that the dynamics of US stock indices is unstable, as investors do not know how to assess the latest statistics and their possible impact on the future actions of the Federal Reserve System.
The Fed will hold its next meeting September 21-22.
Statistics released last week showed a slight slowdown in inflation rates, as well as an unexpected growth in retail sales.
On Friday, the University of Michigan released the preliminary value of its consumer confidence index for September, the value of which was 71 points, up from 70.3 points a month earlier. Analysts on average expected the index to rise to 72 points.