Markets Fall On Oil Concerns (SPY, QQQQ, GLD, USO, TLT, UUP)

U.S. equity markets were hit hard on Friday with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling more than 170 points at one point. A late day rally, however, lifted markets significantly off of their worst levels for the session.

The catalyst for the sell-off was once again higher crude oil prices, which caused investors to take money off of the table in equities despite a better than expected non-farm payrolls number.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed the session down 88 points at just below 12,170. The widely watched blue-chip index traded in a range between 12,079 and 12,271.

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF SPY lost 0.75% to $132.47. Volume was very heavy with 277 million SPY shares trading hands compared to a 3-month daily average of just 139 million. This is in line with the trend of a rising market on low volume and heavy volume on sell-offs, which could be a bearish signal.

The PowerShares QQQ Trust ETF QQQQ, which tracks the performance of the Nasdaq 100, lost 0.51% to close at $57.95. For the week, the quad Q's gained 0.56%.

Gold outperformed again on Friday. COMEX gold futures closed the session at $1,428.60, a gain of 0.86%. Silver futures added 2.91% to close at a new 31-year high of $35.327. The SPDR Gold Trust ETF jumped 0.91% to $139.35.

Treasuries rose as money came out of risk assets and into U.S. debt. The iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF TLT gained 0.83% to $90.81. The yield on the 10-Year Note fell 6.5 basis points to 3.49%.

The U.S. Dollar continued to fall on Friday, despite the sell off in risk assets - a potentially ominous sign. The PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish ETF UUP, which tracks the performance of the greenback versus a basket of foreign currencies, shed 0.16% to $21.93 and is sitting at an all-time low. The closely watched EUR/USD pair is currently trading at $1.3987.