NEW YORK — U. S. stocks dipped on Friday as investors were cautious ahead of the first round of the closely contested French presidential election,<br />but the S&P 500 managed to notch its first weekly gain in three.<br />The S&P 500 posted 28 new 52-week highs and 1 new low; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 92 new highs and 39 new lows.<br />The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 30.95 points, or 0.15 percent, to 20,547.76, the S&P 500 lost 7.15 points, or 0.30 percent, to 2,348.69<br />and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 6.26 points, or 0.11 percent, to 5,910.52.<br />Of the 95 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings through Friday morning, about 75 percent have topped<br />expectations, according to Thomson Reuters data, above the 71-percent average for the past four quarters.<br />For the week, the Dow rose 0.5 percent, the S&P gained 0.8 percent<br />and the Nasdaq advanced 1.8 percent in what was the first weekly gain for the top indexes over the last three weeks.
