Stocks finished mixed on Friday, ending a difficult week, as continuing credit-market problems affected the financial sector and Amazon.com's stock-buyback plan boosted the technology sector. Amazon.com on Friday said its board approved a plan to buy back $1 billion of the company's stock over the next two years. The online retailer also said it was establishing a program to buy back debt. But the financial sector continued its recent weakness amid uncertainty about the impact of the credit-market crisis. Citigroup, J.P. Morgan, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley all fell. Light sweet crude oil for marc delivery jumped $3.66 to settle at $91.77 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 64.87, or 0.5 percent, to 12,182.13. The decline was led by financial stocks. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 5.62, or 0.4 percent, to 1,331.29. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index rose 11.82, or 0.5 percent, to 2,304.85. In addition to Amazon.com, whose shares rose 3 percent, other big gainers included Microsoft and Apple. The New York Stock Exchange composite index fell 35.92 to 8,823.12. The American Stock Exchange composite index rose 22.62 to 2,229.96. And the Russell 2000 index fell 3.85 to 698.93.
