NEW YORK: US stocks closed lower Friday after two record-setting days, with sentiment dulled by poor US retail sales figures for March and more prospects of slow economic growth around the world.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished virtually flat, down 0.08 at 14,865.06.
The broad-based S&P 500 fell 4.52 points (0.28 percent) to 1,588.85, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite lost 5.21 (0.16 percent) at 3,294.95.
The losses came after the Commerce Department reported a 0.4 percent drop in March retail sales compared with February, and a media report said that the IMF has lowered its forecast for US growth to 1.7 percent.
"This doesn't change our view for the first quarter but it does indicate slower momentum as the second quarter began," Jennifer Lee of BMO Capital markets commented on the retail sales data.
Some weak signs in the first-quarter results from two banks also kept buying on hold.
Wells Fargo's (-0.8 percent) first quarter profits rose 22 percent, but the bank, the largest issuer of home loans, said its pipeline of new mortgages was slowing.
Earnings at JPMorgan Chase (-0.6 percent) rose by 33 percent, helped by a 90 percent decline in the company's litigation costs and improving credit quality. But chief executive Jamie Dimon said lending to small businesses remains weak with the uncertainty over economic growth.
That spilled over to other banks yet to report: Bank of America lost 0.8 percent, Morgan Stanley 2.0 percent and Citigroup 0.2 percent.
Gold-related shares continued to fall after the gold price plunged nearly 5 percent to $1,486.90 per ounce, helped by news that struggling Cyprus will dump its gold reserves onto the market.
Barrick Gold lost 8.5 percent, and Freeport McMoRan gave up 2.7 percent.
Oil companies also lost in a general commodities rout. ExxonMobil slipped 0.3 percent and Chevron lost 0.8 percent. -- AFP
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North Carolina A&T in Greensboro, N.C, is on lockdown following a report of a man spotted on campus with a weapon, the university says in an "Campus Alert" on its website.
"No shots have been fired," the website says.
The university says the University Police Department received a report "of an unknown black male with a weapon in the area of the General Classroom Building."
The individual is described as 5-11, wearing a blue jacket, blue jeans, blue cap and white t-shirt.
Katherine Luck works in housekeeping at the university.She said she was in Craig Hall when she was told to evacuate. Luck observed armed officers run inside.
The university, which has 10.000 students and 2,000 employees, asked students to close and lock doors and windows and said police are conducting a campus-wide search.
Greenboro police confirmed that police are looking for a man with a rifle, the News & Recordreported.
WFMY-TV also reports that Greensboro police are on the campus and says two Guilford County schools are also on lockdown.
As a precaution, GCS also put Washington Elementary and Aycock Elementary on lockdown.
WGHP-TV reported that university police believe the suspect is no longer in the area, but are continuing their search of the campus.
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The arrest of three 16-year-old California boys on charges of sexually assaulting an intoxicated, unconscious teen has reopened raw wounds for the family of the 15-year-old who hanged herself eight months ago after photos of the incident spread on the Internet.
Audrie Pott, an accomplished musician and high school athlete at Saratoga High School, killed herself on Sept. 10, eight days after the alleged assault at a weekend party. She had posted on Facebook that the incident was "the worst day of her life."
Santa Clara County sheriff's spokesman Lt. Jose Cardoza says the boys were booked as juveniles on two felony and one misdemeanor counts Thursday based on information from school resource officers at the high school in Saratoga, Calif.
The names of the suspects were not released because they are minors, but Robert Allard, attorney for Audrie's parents, says they hope the teens won't be treated as juveniles at trial, the San Jose Mercury News reported.
"The family has been trying to understand why their loving daughter would have taken her life at such a young age and to make sure that those responsible would be held accountable," Allard says.
"After an extensive investigation that we have conducted on behalf of the family, there is no doubt in our minds that the victim, then only 15 years old, was savagely assaulted by her fellow high school students while she lay on a bed completely unconscious."
The attorney said students used cell phones to share photos of the attack, and that the images went viral.
He alleges that at least three high school boys assaulted Audrie in the bedroom at the home of a friend whose parents were away for the weekend, patch.com reported.
USA TODAY and the Associated Press do not, as a rule, identify victims of sexual assault. But in this case, Pott's family wanted her name and case known, Allard says. The family also provided a photo to the AP.
Her father and step-mother Lawrence and Lisa Pott, along with her mother Sheila Pott, set up the Audrie Pott Foundation to provide music and art scholarships and to offer youth counseling and support.
The foundation website alludes to the teen's struggles, but until now neither law enforcement, school officials nor family have discussed the sexual battery.
"She was compassionate about life, her friends, her family, and would never do anything to harm anyone," the site says. "She was in the process of developing the ability to cope with the cruelty of this world but had not quite figured it all out.
"Ultimately, she had not yet acquired the antibiotics to deal with the challenges present for teens in today's society."
Allard says the parents want their daughter's case to become a model for a law bearing her name, the Mercury News reports.
"Audrie's Law would address some of the things that happened here," he says. "There are two common elements here that are being repeated across the country -- sexual assault by an adolescent and the cyberbullying that follows."
In Steubenville, Ohio, two teenager football players were convicted last month of raping a drunk and unconscious 16-year-old girl whose naked photos were later circulated on the Internet.
In Canada, 17-year-old Rehtaeh Parsons of Halifax, Nova Scotia, died Sunday after hanging herself last week.
Her mother, Leah Parsons, says a boy had taken a photo of Rehtaeh during an alleged sexual assault incident in November, 2011, and posted it online.
She hanged her self after the Royal Canadian Mounted Police ruled last week that an 18-month investigation provided no grounds to charge four teens over allegations they raped the then 15-year-old Rehtaeh.
Her father, Glen Canning, said in a Facebook posting that his daughter "wasn't bullied to death, she was disappointed to death. Disappointed in people she thought she could trust, her school, and the police."
Nova Scotia's justice minister said Thursday he has ordered an investigation into how the RCMP handled the initial allegations against the teenagers, according to the Canadian Press.
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