S&P 500 gains for eighth straight week

NEW YORK » The stock market fizzled Friday at the end of a holiday-shortened trading day but still logged its longest streak of weekly gains in a decade.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index ended down 1 point, or 0.1 percent, at 1,805.81. The Dow Jones industrial average slipped 10 points, or 0.1 percent, at 16,086.41.

Investors watched for early trends in holiday sales as the busiest shopping day of the year, Black Friday, got underway. Retailers were one of two industry groups in the S&P 500 to rise.

Stocks overall have surged this year as the economy maintains a slow but steady recovery and corporations keep earnings growing. Demand for stocks also has been bolstered by Federal Reserve policies that have held down interest rates, making bonds less attractive investments than stocks.

Stocks rose for most of the day Friday but petered out in the last half-hour of trading.

The New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq closed early, at 8 a.m. Hawaii time, and activity was lower than average a day after Thanksgiving. Thin trading can lead to sudden swings in markets.

Although the S&P 500 and Dow slipped, the Nasdaq composite rose 15 points, or 0.4 percent, to end at 4,059.89. The index has surged 34 percent this year, more than the other two indexes.

And even though the S&P 500 eased Friday, it still rose for an eighth straight week, its longest stretch of weekly advances in a decade.

Eurozone shaky despite jobless rate falling

FRANKFURT, Germany » The eurozone, suffering from years of stagnation or worse, reached another milestone in its stumbling recovery Friday when the official unemployment rate fell for the first time since 2011.

But a separate report showing a slight rise in inflation was not enough to quell fears that the 17 nations that rely on the euro as their common currency were at risk of being sucked into a potentially ruinous downward price spiral.

Unemployment in the 17 countries of the eurozone dropped to 12.1 percent in October, from the 12.2 percent record of the previous month, according to official figures. While it was mildly encouraging that an estimated 61,000 fewer people were jobless, the unemployment figures also showed that the rate in the 28 countries in the European Union, including countries not in the eurozone like Britain, Poland or Romania, was unchanged at 10.9 percent.

At the same time, estimated inflation in the eurozone rose to 0.9 percent in November from a year earlier, up from 0.7 percent in October, according to Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics office.

The inflation rate is still well below the European Central Bank’s target rate of around 2 percent, and short of the level required to convince many economists that the eurozone is safe from deflation, a persistent and broad decline of prices that is a typical feature of economic depression.

Mexican drug cartels now exporting ore

MEXICO CITY » Mexican drug cartels looking to diversify their businesses long ago moved into oil theft, pirated goods, extortion and kidnapping, consuming an ever larger swath of the country’s economy. This month, federal officials confirmed the cartels have even entered the country’s lucrative mining industry, exporting iron ore to Chinese mills.

Such large-scale illegal mining operations were long thought to be wild rumor, but federal officials confirmed they had known about the cartels’ involvement in mining since 2010, and that the Nov. 4 military takeover of Lazaro Cardenas, Mexico’s second-largest port, was aimed at cutting off the cartels’ export trade.

That news served as a wake-up call to Mexicans that drug traffickers have penetrated the country’s economy at unheard-of levels, becoming true Mafia-style organizations.

S. Korea seeks to join U.S.-led trade pact

SEOUL »South Korea said Friday it will start negotiations to join a U.S.-led trade pact covering a dozen Pacific and Asian nations.

The finance ministry said in a statement that officials will explore the possibility of joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership through the preliminary negotiations. The move is a first step and doesn’t commit South Korea to becoming part of the agreement, but the trade ministry has been talking up its benefits for the economy.

Export-reliant South Korea has free-trade deals with the U.S. and European Union. It is negotiating a free-trade deal with China, which is not part of the U.S.-led pact.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is not in effect yet, but the U.S. and other countries hope for an agreement by the end of this year. Apart from reducing trade barriers, the pact also requires its members to meet environmental, labor and intellectual property protection standards.

ON THE SPOT

25 arrested after protests at California Walmart stores

ROSEVILLE, Calif. >> More than two dozen people were arrested in protests at California Walmart stores during the Black Friday shopping surge.

Police in Roseville, northeast of Sacramento, arrested 15 people following a protest at a Walmart there, police said. The protesters were taken into custody for failing to disperse when they blocked an intersection in the Placer County city, police Sgt. Jeff Kool said.

The protesters had marched about a half-mile to the intersection following a demonstration that included about 100 people protesting Walmart’s wages and labor practices, The Sacramento Bee reported.

It was one of many similar protests across the country Friday.

Amelia McLear, a spokes­woman for Wal-Mart Stores Inc., told the newspaper the protesters were a “vocal minority.”

“We’re always willing to have a dialogue with our critics, but it’s hard to have a dialogue with people screaming into a megaphone,” McLear said.

In Southern California, 10 people were arrested from among more than 100 members of a labor group and their supporters after they sat down in an Ontario intersection and waited to be taken away by police.

Karl Hilgert of Claremont, who came dressed as Santa Claus, said he planned to be arrested for civil disobedience, and he and the others were later taken into custody as they sat in a circle in the roadway.

Several state legislators also joined the protest, where signs read, “Livable Wages Over Greed.”

“We’re only asking for something basic: food on our tables and roofs over our heads,” Freddie Rodriguez, D-Chino, told the San Bernardino Sun.

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