国际英语新闻：Wall Street suffers first down week in three

NEW YORK, June 25 (Xinhua) -- Most stocks finished modestly higher on Friday, led by a rally in the financial sector after the completion of Congressional financial legislation. However, Wall Street still failed to extend its gains to the third straight week as mounting concerns over economic rebound kept weighing on the market.

The Dow Jones industrial average finished Friday's session with a small loss of 0.09 percent at 10,143.81, while it suffered a weekly loss of nearly 3 percent.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index gained 3.07 points, or 0.29 percent, to 1,076.76 and the Nasdaq added 6.06 points, or 0.27 percent, to 2,223.48. However, both indexes tumbled more than 3.5 percent for the week.

Financials took the lead on Friday as the U.S. congress completed the biggest reform of financial regulations since the Great Depression after a long night of final negotiation. Although the legislation will impose new capital requirements on banks and for the first time extend comprehensive regulation to the over-the- counter derivatives market, banks will only be required to spin off their riskiest swap-trading operations.

The rally in financials helped offset the downbeat news that U. S. economy was expanding at a lower pace in the first quarter.

The Commerce Department revised down for the second time its estimate of economic growth in the first quarter of 2010 due to lower consumer spending. Gross domestic product rose at an annual rate of 2.7 percent, down from an original estimate of 3.2 percent in April.

Also adding to the gains, The University of Michigan said its final reading of June consumer sentiment was rising to a two year high of 76, while the market was expecting the index to stay at its previous level of 75.5.

On other markets, the dollar fell against all its major counterparts as investors eyed two international summits in Canada this weekend, with leaders of the Group of Eight and G20 nations coming together to discuss measures to prevent a slowdown in the global economic recovery. The euro advanced to 1.2387 dollars in late New York trading.

Separately, crude oil rose sharply on Friday to finish above 78 dollars a barrel for the first time since May 5, as investors worried oil production in the Gulf of Mexico will be influenced by a possible hurricane.

Crude oil for August delivery surged 2.35 dollars, or 3.1 percent, to settle at 78.86 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In London, August Brent crude on the ICE futures exchange settled up 1.65 dollars, to settle at 78.12 dollars a barrel.