Market Ends Short Week in the Red

The stock market is closed Friday for Good Friday, and Thursday's performance failed to raise it into positive territory for the week. The Dow fell 113 points to 34,451, the S&P 500 fell 54 points to 4,392, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 292 points to 13,351. The latter was a drop of more than 2%. That puts the benchmark S&P down about 2% for the week and the Nasdaq down about 3.7%, reports CNBC. The Dow was largely flat. The AP chalks up the sluggish performance to familiar factors: Fears about rising inflation and the Fed's expected raising of interest rates.

“I think the data has come in exactly to support that step of policy action if the committee chooses to do so, and gives us the basis for doing it,” Fed board member Christopher Waller said on CNBC's Closing Bell. He expects rates to start going up over the next few months. “I prefer a front-loading approach, so a 50-basis-point hike in May would be consistent with that, and possibly more in June and July.” Also of note Thursday: Tesla shares slipped nearly 2% in afternoon trading after Elon Musk offered to buy the company. (More stock market stories.)