Stocks ended mixed Friday, ending a difficult week, as a rally in the battered financial sector countered growing recession worries sparked by a report showing a weak U.S. labor market. The three major indexes fell early in the session on the U.S. jobs report but recovered in the afternoon as the financial sector rebounded. The financial sector is the second-biggest one in the Standard & Poor's 500 index, after technology, so a rally in its stocks can help improve the overall market. The U.S. unemployment rate jumped to a five-year high of 6.1 percent in August, as employers cut jobs from their payrolls for the eighth consecutive month due to the weak economy. Employers slashed 84,000 jobs last month, more than economists had expected. In the first eight months of the year, the U.S. economy has lost 605,000 jobs. Light sweet crude oil for October delivery fell $1.66 to $106.23 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after ending the previous session at a five-month low. The U.S. dollar gained versus the euro, hitting the highest point against the European currency since last October. The dollar also hit the highest level against the British pound in two years. The U.S. currency was flat versus the yen. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 32.73, or 0.3 percent, to 11,220.96. Commodity and technology shares remained under pressure. Shares of aluminum maker Alcoa, oil company Chevron, and software giant Microsoft all fell. The broader S&P 500 rose 5.48, or 0.4 percent, to 1,242.31. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index fell 3.16, or 0.1 percent, to 2,255.88. The New York Stock Exchange composite index rose 25.51 to 8,033.76. The American Stock Exchange composite index fell 5.60 to 1,928.80. And the Russell 2000 index rose 0.23 to 718.85.
