S&P 500 slips as Hurricane Irma nears Florida; tech falls

The S&P 500 ended slightly lower on Friday as investors braced for potential damage from Hurricane Irma as it drove toward Florida, while a decline in big tech names like Apple and Facebook pushed the Nasdaq down more sharply. 

The Dow eked out a gain, helped by a 4.0-percent rise in shares of insurer Travelers (TRV.N). Irma, one of the most powerful Atlantic storms in a century, lashed Cuba and the Bahamas as it drove toward Florida, while U.S. officials were preparing a massive response to the storm.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 13.01 points, or 0.06 percent, to 21,797.79, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 3.67 points, or 0.15 percent, to 2,461.43 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped 37.68 points, or 0.59 percent, to 6,360.19. 

The tech sector .SPLRCT, which has outperformed all other major groups this year, ended down 0.9 percent. Shares of Apple (AAPL.O) were down 1.6 percent while shares of Facebook (FB.O) fell 1.3 percent. 

Energy shares .SPNY fell 1.1 percent as oil prices dropped on worries that commerce and energy demand in Florida and the Southeast would be hit hard due to Irma. 

Shares of Home Depot (HD.N) and Lowe’s Cos (LOW.N), which have gained amid of the arrival of the storms, rose on Friday. The stocks were up 1.1 percent each. 

Equifax (EFX.N) was the biggest percentage loser on the S&P, falling 13.7 percent, after the provider of consumer credit scores said personal details of as many as 143 million U.S. consumers were hacked. 

Kroger (KR.N) shares ended down 7.5 percent after the biggest U.S. supermarket owner reported a quarterly profit drop amid an intensifying grocery price war. 

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 1.19-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.01-to-1 ratio favored advancers.