U.S. Stocks Lose Ground Over Shutdown Worries

With anxiety over budget negotiations on Capitol Hill keeping buyers at bay, U.S. stocks fell Friday, with the S&P 500 index and the Dow suffering their first weekly drop since August.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 70 points, or 0.46% to close at 15,258.2, a 1.3% decline for the week. The S&P 500 dropped almost seven pints, or 0.4% to 1,691.75, a 1.1% loss for the week.

And the Nasdaq Composite fell 5.8 points, or 0.15% to close at 3,781.6.

Wall Street remains unsettled over the lack of progress in budget and debt-ceiling talks in Washington. The government shutdown looming on Oct. 1 overshadowed encouraging consumer-spending data and an upbeat earnings report from Nike (NKE).

Nike rose 4.7% to close at $73.64 after the Dow component posted better-than-expected earnings led by strong sales growth in the U.S. and Europe and wider gross margins.

Americans’ personal spending rose 0.3% in August from a month earlier and incomes increased 0.4%, the Commerce Department reported. The gains were in line with economists’ forecasts.

But most eyes were fixed on Congress. The Senate on Friday approved a short-term spending bill that would help avoid a government next week. House Speaker John Boehner on Thursday said the House wouldn’t accept the bill.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note slipped to 2.62% from 2.643% late Thursday. Yields move inversely to prices.

Crude-oil futures declined 0.27% to settle at $102.76 a barrel. October gold futures advanced 1% to $1,336.90 a troy ounce. And the U.S. dollar declined against both the yen and the euro.

In corporate news:

J.C. Penney (JCP) fell 13.15% to close at roughly $9 after the retailer agreed to sell 84 million shares late Thursday. The offering was priced at $9.65 a share, 7.4% below Thursday’s closing price.

Goldman Sachs (GS), which is managing J.C. Penney’s stock offering, dropped 1.5% to close at $159.85.

Lumber Liquidators (LL) fell 5.2% to close at $107.13 after federal authorities executed a search on Thursday at the company’s headquarters in Virginia, a move the company said involved the importation of some wood-flooring products. Before Friday’s decline, the stock had more than doubled this year.