MARKET CLOSE EXTRA: Dow suffers biggest weekly drop in two years

UPDATE / SAT: US President Donald Trump skipped his usual tweet about the stock market today, and no wonder.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 665 points or 2.5% to 25,502 Friday US time — its biggest one-day decline since the UK.’s surprise vote to leave the European Union in June 2016.

Today's fall means the Dow is down 4.2% for the week — it's biggest one-week drop since January 2016.

Meanwhile, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note climbed to 2.852% on Friday, its highest level since January 2014 — and an indication that investors are starting to fear inflation as a key jobs report showed the return of wage growth. Renewed interest in bonds could also mean that some investors think the bull market has peaked following a 21% runup in the past year.

Amazon [NAS:AMZN] was one of the few stocks to buck the broad sell-off, rising 2.87%. The e-tailer, cloud computing provider and content streamer announced a fourth-quarter profit of $US1.9 billion (the first time the growth-focused company had topped $US billion profit in a quarter) on revenue that rose 38% $US60.5 billion. 

EARLIER / FRI: NZ shares rise, led by Air NZ, Briscoe; CBL falls before being halted
New Zealand shares gained, led by Air New Zealand and Fletcher Building, with Z Energy and CBL dropping.

The S&P/NZX50 Index rose 31.42 points, or 0.4 percent, to 8,415.29. Within the index, 23 stocks rose, 17 fell and 10 were unchanged. Turnover was $168 million.

Air New Zealand led the index, up 2.6 percent to $3.13. This week the airline posted December operating figures, showing gains in passengers and revenue passenger kilometres.

"It has continued its recent strong bounce back, no new news but its operating stats the other day were solid enough," said Matt Goodson, managing director at Salt Funds Management. "The key headwind for them at the moment is rising fuel prices, but they do have a degree of hedging in the short term.

"Ultimately it's a bit of a double-edged sword, competitors who are perhaps struggling on the skinny long-haul routes into New Zealand may be less inclined to put new capacity on when prices are high. Plus the New Zealand dollar has been strong of late, and Air NZ is a key beneficiary of that."

Fletcher Building rose 2.1 percent to $7.96, Mainfreight gained 1.5 percent to $26.40, and Tourism Holdings jumped 1.4 percent to $5.84.

Z Energy was the worst performer, down 2.1 percent to $7.41, weakening off throughout the day following a significant line of stock changing hands at $7.45 before the market opened.

Infratil dropped 1.4 percent to $3.17 and Metro Performance Glass fell 1.1 percent to 93 cents.

CBL declined 0.9 percent to $3.17 before being put in a trading halt ahead of an earnings update on Monday.

Outside the benchmark index, Briscoe Group gained 2.9 percent to $3.50. It says full-year sales topped $600 million for the first time, helped by stronger revenue from sporting goods in the fourth quarter, and it expects to report a record annual profit of about $61 million.

Total sales rose 2.6 percent to about $194 million in the 13 weeks ended Jan. 28. Homeware sales climbed 1.3 percent to $124.8 million, although on a same-store basis they were down 0.3 percent, while sporting goods sales rose 5.1 percent to $69 million, or a 4.9 percent same-store gain.

"It was a solid update, reaffirming profit around where the market's at," Goodson said. "I think the stock's gain reflects general nervousness about retail, but it has been quite noticeable that retail in Australia and New Zealand does seem to have had quite a good Christmas."

With reporting by BusinessDesk