Friday Market Wrap: Stocks Close Week With Small Losses

The U.S. stock market closed out another quiet week with small losses on Friday. The market opened the session lower and then climbed through mid-day. After an early afternoon sell-off, the major averages closed near their best levels of the day. Gainers included

, which jumped almost 22 percent a day after plunging nearly 40 percent on news that the U.S. government is ending its private prison program. The stock remains down sharply from previous levels. Agricultural giant

climbed almost 14 percent on Friday after a strong Q3 earnings report. Losers included

, which fell 13 percent on a downgrade, and

, which lost around 10 percent on the day.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 45 points, or 0.24 percent, to close at 18,553. The S&P 500 fell around 3 points, or 0.14 percent, to 2,184. The Nasdaq lost 2 points, or just 0.03 percent, to finish at 5,238.

The commodity complex followed stocks lower on Friday, with the Bloomberg Commodity Index shedding 0.58 percent. NYMEX crude oil futures gained 0.56 percent to $48.49 while Brent contracts fell 0.18 percent and finished at $50.80. Natural gas futures lost 3.85 percent to $2.57. Precious metals traded down on Friday. COMEX gold futures fell 0.92 percent to finish at $1,344.70. The

lost 0.89 percent to $127.97. Silver futures fell 2.25 percent to $19.30 on the session. The

traded down 2.24 percent to $18.35. In the grains complex, corn and wheat were higher on the session. Corn futures closed out the week with a gain of 0.51 percent to $3.4375 per bushel while wheat futures added 0.11 percent to $4.4475.

Treasury prices were lower on Friday. At the close of equities, the

had lost 0.52 percent to $138.71. Treasury yields were as follows on Friday afternoon: The yield on the 2-Year Note was 0.76 percent. The 5-Year Note was yielding 1.17 percent. The 10-Year Note was last yielding 1.58 percent while the 30-Year Bond yield was 2.29 percent.

The U.S. Dollar was slightly higher on Friday. The

, which tracks the performance of the greenback versus a basket of foreign currencies, added 0.37 percent to $24.42. The closely watched EUR/USD pair fell 0.27 percent to 1.1323 euros.

The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) was slightly lower on the day and continues to sit near 52-week low levels as market volatility and economic worries remain muted. The VIX fell 0.79 percent to 11.34 to close out the week. Volume was lighter than normal on Friday with around 67 million shares of the

trading hands versus a 3-month daily average of 94 million shares. Trading in the

, which tracks the Nasdaq 100, was also below average with around 17.3 million shares trading hands compared to a 3-month daily average of 22 million.