Stocks declined Friday after a strong jobs report increased the likelihood that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates by mid-year, while Greece was downgraded by Standard & Poor's.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 60.59 points, 0.34 percent, at 17,824.29. The broad-based S&P 500 lost 7.05, 0.34 percent, at 2,055.47, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index declined 20.70, 0.43 percent, to 4,744.40.
"The market was due for a breather after strong gains this week," Rob Williams, deputy editor of Moneynews.com, said on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax.TV. "Next week, we'll see if the S&P 500 finds support at its 50-day moving average of about 2,045 before advancing higher. The market is basically at a level reached in late November."
Story continues below video of NewsmaxTV's market commentary.
Note: Watch Newsmax TV now on DIRECTV Ch. 349, DISH Ch. 223, FiOS Ch. 115The losses followed a strong jobs report that sent U.S. stocks higher in the morning.
The Labor Department said the U.S. economy added 257,000 jobs in January, better than the 235,000 projected by analysts.
The report also included large upward revisions to jobs growth in November and December and said hourly wage growth gained 0.5 percent, a big improvement after a December drop.
Standard & Poor's cut its credit rating on Greece and warned about the country's possible exit from the euro zone.
JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and other large banks rose. A Wells Fargo Advisors note said their gains were due to "rate hike speculation." Higher interest rates are a net positive for bank earnings.
Dow member Verizon rose 3.1 percent after the telecom giant announced the sale of landline operations in three states to Frontier Communications for $10.54 billion and some 160 wireless towers to American Tower Corp for $5.0 billion. The company also announced a $5 billion share-repurchase program.
Frontier rose 3.0 percent and American Tower dropped 3.9 percent.
Microblogging company Twitter shot up 16.4 percent as fourth-quarter revenue nearly doubled from a year ago, signaling the company is doing a better job of monetizing its users.
Defense contractor Exelis skyrocketed 36.3 percent following news that it will be acquired by Harris, a supplier of military radios, for $4.75 billion. Harris rose 9.6 percent.
Intuit, which markets TurboTax and other popular financial-management software programs, lost 4.2 percent after announcing that it suspended its transmission of state e-filing tax returns due to an uptick of fraudulent state tax filings using stolen identity information.
Bond prices fell. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury rose to 1.95 percent from 1.81 percent Thursday, while the 30-year advanced to 2.53 percent from 2.42 percent. Bond prices and yields move inversely.