At the close Friday, the S&P 500....>

US STOCKS CLOSE: At the close Friday, the S&P 500 stood around 2,426, (down

4.46pts, -0.18%) after trading in a 2,420.69 to 2,440.27 range. The earlier low

was the lowest since July 11, when the index bottomed at 2,412.79.

- At Thursday's close, the index was up 8.5% year-to date and down 2.4% from the

life-time intraday high of 2,490.87, seen August 8.

- The S&P 500 has closed below recent lows of 2,437.85, seen August 11, and

2,437.75, seen August 10, which were the lowest levels since mid July.

- The Dow Jones Industrial Average posted a record intraday high of 22,179.11 on

August 8 and the Nasdaq Composite posted a life-time high of 6,460.841 July 27.

The indexes were last at 21,785 and 6,253 respectively.

- Market players were also keeping an eye on the Russell 2000 index, which often

leads larger stock swings.

- The index, last at 1,361, earlier posted a low of 1,349.35, which was the

lowest level since April 17, when the Russell 2000 bottomed at 1,345.363.

- The Russell 200 remained below its 200-day moving average, around 1,375, which

pointed to still lower levels.