US stocks slip, but Dow ends year on positive note

Spain's new government approved billions of euros in deficit reduction measures Friday as Madrid announced a significantly larger-than-anticipated shortfall for 2011.
Madrid's budget deficit stands at 8 per cent of gross domestic product for the year, a full 2 percentage points more than previously forecast, making austerity measures even more necessary, said government spokeswoman Soraya Saenz de Santamaria.
The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 69.48 points, or 0.57 per cent, to 12,217.56. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 Index also declined, losing 5.42 points, or 0.43 per cent, to 1,257.60. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index slipped 8.59 points, or 0.33 per cent, to 2,605.15.
The Dow was up 5.53 per cent since the start of 2011 after a whirlwind of ups and downs as pressure mounted on European governments to find a solution to the eurozone debt crisis. But the S&P remained virtually unchanged since the start of the year, while the Nasdaq ended the year down 1.8 per cent.
The year end figures, coming amid some optimism about the US economy, even as  the eurozone debt crisis looms and analysts say the US has a long road ahead before it fully recovers from the worst economic downturn in decades.
The US jobless rate dropped to more than two-year low of 8.6 per cent this month from 9 percent, and Thursday Labour Department figures showed that the four-week moving average for unemployment insurance claims decrease to 375,000 last week, the lowest level since June 2008.
On Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, when the holiday shopping countdown starts, retailers welcomed 226 million shoppers into their stores - a 6.6-per-cent rise over last year's figure.
The US currency edged up slightly against the euro to 77.26 euro cents from 77.15 euro cents on Thursday. The dollar slid against the Japanese currency to 76.93 yen from 77.65 yen.//DPA