NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stocks slipped Friday as discouraging consumer spending and Chicago area manufacturing activity tugged at sentiment on the final day of trading in a bleak month for the market.
Approaching the end of a tumultuous month of trading, stock indexes slid narrowly into the red on Friday as a morning battery of economic data largely failed to meet expectations. The Dow Jones Industrial Average /quotes/comstock/10w!i:dji/delayed (DJIA 10,198, -60.54, -0.59%) dropped 40 points, or 0.4%, to 10219. Cisco Systems /quotes/comstock/15*!csco/quotes/nls/csco (CSCO 23.26, -0.42, -1.75%) was the measure's worst performer, with a drop of 1.4%.
The Dow is on pace to close out May with its biggest monthly drop since February 2009, before the bull-market run started, as well as the biggest May point drop in its history. It would also be the measure's worst percentage performance since 1962. The slide snaps a string of three consecutive monthly gains. Trading during May, which included the flash crash in the first week, has been particularly volatile.
