Wall St. closes down for January, Shake Shack rallies in debut

Another genuine rout today, but it didn't look that way for most of the day.  The morning started out tough with the Dow down more than 150 points by noon, but then rallied again.  As late as 3 p.m. all the losses were recouped and the day came very close to ending in positive territory.  Then very suddenly in the last hour a selloff sent the index plummeting 252 points.  What happened to explain this?  Not much.  Sure, there were a couple of negative Q4 reports.  But until today they'd been mostly positive and the overall Q4 picture remains so.  Yet, just one hour of bad trading now has all the skeptics believing again that we are headed for doom.  Yes, we found out that business investment in Q4 was half of that in Q3.  But then, we already knew that several days ago.  Yes, Greece issued a statement that it would not cooperate with the EU; but then, with the election results last Sunday, that was already a given.  Didn't they say on Monday that the market had already factored that in?  Little did they know.  And yes, there is continued concern that Europe may drag down U.S. corporate earnings but, not only has that concern been out there for quite some time now, but so far Q4 results have belied it.  There was also quite a lot of good news.  Consumer spending  is at its fastest pace since 2006.  Energy had a great day, with crude rising 8% upon news that the oil companies have drastically reduced the number of operating oil rigs, in fact the biggest decline in drilling since 1987, a sign that we're finally addressing the glut problem by cutting production.  Consumer sentiment is at its highest in 11 years due to positive job and wage prospects.  And anyone who got in on the Shake Shack IPO saw their investment more than double today.  So why the big selloff in the last hour?  The answer is -- who knows?  The only thing that seems to be consistent in this market is that no one knows anything.  But then I think we've always known that.  If there's any truth to trends, my guess is that it will be back up again on Monday.  Volume was very strong at 8.5 billion shares.

Wall St. closes down for January, Shake Shack rallies in debut

BY SINEAD CAREW

DJ:     17,164.95  -251.90      NAS:      4,635.25  -48.17        S&P:   1,994.99  -26.26

NEW YORK Fri Jan 30, 2015 6:00pm EST

(Reuters) - U.S. stocks closed down on Friday after a volatile session as investors worried at the end of a rough month for the market about weak U.S. growth data and whether instability in Europe could hurt corporate earnings in the United States.

U.S. economic growth slowed sharply in the fourth quarter as weak business spending and a wider trade deficit offset the fastest pace of consumer spending since 2006.

This came after Greece's finance minister said the government would not cooperate with the European Union and International Monetary Fund mission.

A brief afternoon rally from rising oil prices failed to stick as investors, nervous about U.S. and global economies, fled to bonds from equities and even sold off utilities stocks, the worst performing sector on the day.

"It feels like a flight-to-safety trade on a month-end. People are putting money into assets that have done well this month," said Peter Coleman, head trader at ConvergEx Group in New York, who said Friday was a good reflection of the month.

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI fell 251.9 points, or 1.45 percent, to 17,164.95, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 26.26 points, or 1.3 percent, to 1,994.99 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped 48.17 points, or 1.03 percent, to 4,635.24.

The S&P energy sector was the only one to finish up on Friday with a 0.74 percent increase after falling as much as 1.5 percent earlier in the session. It rebounded when crude futures rose 8 percent after a survey showed the biggest decline since 1987 in the number of rigs drilling for U.S. oil.

For the week, the Dow and S&P were each down 2.8 percent, and the Nasdaq fell 2.6 percent. For January, the Dow was down 3.6 percent and the Nasdaq was off 2.1 percent.

The S&P fell 3.1 percent in January, which was its biggest monthly loss since January 2014 and its first back-to-back monthly decline since April-May 2012.

Consumer spending was a bright spot as data showed U.S. consumer sentiment rose in January to its highest in 11 years on better job and wage prospects.

That confidence appeared to be reflected in some corporate results. Amazon AMZN.O shares jumped 13.7 percent after earnings beat Wall Street expectations on strong holiday season sales.

"Winners are being rewarded, whereas the market has really no tolerance for anything that comes up short," said Randy Bateman, chief investment officer of Huntington Asset Management in Columbus, Ohio.

In contrast to the broader market, shares of burger restaurant Shake Shack SHAK.N rose more than 118.6 percent in their market debut.

About 8.5 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, well above the almost 7 billion average for the last five sessions, according to BATS Global Markets.

NYSE declining issues outnumbered advancers 2,107 to 991, for a 2.13-to-1 ratio; on theNasdaq, 2,040 issues fell and 691 advanced, for a 2.95-to-1 ratio.

The S&P 500 posted 18 new 52-week highs and 15 lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 43 new highs and 86 new lows.