* Chevron's warning fuels more earnings, economic jitters
* Consumer confidence falls to weakest since March
* Goldman upgrade helps tech
* Dow off 0.8 pct, S&P off 0.7 pct, Nasdaq off 0.1 pct
* For up-to-the-minute market news click []
(Updates to late afternoon, changes byline)
By Edward Krudy
NEW YORK, July 10 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell on Friday,
with the Dow industrials and the S&P 500 set for their fourth
weekly drop after Chevron <CVX.N> warned about its second-
quarter results and consumer confidence fell to it lowest
level since March.
But the technology-heavy Nasdaq outperformed the wider
market after Goldman Sachs upgraded the U.S. hardware and
software sectors to "attractive" from "neutral," citing
potential growth in demand from businesses.
Among a series of other calls, Goldman raised its price
target on the stock of Apple Inc <AAPL.O> to $160 from $145.
Apple's shares jumped 1.4 percent to $138.33 and gave the top
boost to the Nasdaq.
The news on Chevron and the U.S consumer underscored
investors' concerns that an economic recovery and corporate
profits in the second-quarter earnings season may be weak.
U.S. oil futures prices fell as much as 1.5 percent earlier in
the session to slide below $60 a barrel, which prompted
investors to sell some shares of energy companies.
"People are starting to question whether the economic
recovery is going to take place in the latter part of this
year or whether it's going to come next year," said Cleveland
Rueckert, market analyst at Birinyi Associates in Stamford,
Connecticut.
"I think that has been the general sentiment over the last
few weeks," he said. "Some of the (economic) data points
haven't really lined up with the projected recovery this
year."
The Dow Jones industrial average <> dropped 64.99
points, or 0.79 percent, to 8,118.18. The Standard & Poor's
500 Index <.SPX> fell 5.76 points, or 0.65 percent, to 876.92.
The Nasdaq Composite Index <> dipped 1.38 points, or 0.08
percent, to 1,751.17.
The S&P 500's recent rally of nearly 40 percent from a
12-year closing low in early march has stalled as investors
failed to find hard evidence that the economy is recovering at
a healthy pace. The broad-based index is off 7 percent since
hitting a peak on June 12.
Weighing on investors, U.S. consumer sentiment soured in
early July, slipping to its weakest since March, when
confidence in the financial sector and economy were at a low
ebb, according to Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of
Consumers.
Energy shares were the biggest losers in the S&P 500,
pressured both by a drop in crude oil prices and after Chevron
said that any benefit from higher oil prices would be largely
offset by a weaker dollar in the second quarter. Chevron's
stock fell 2.8 percent to $61.34 and was among the Dow's top
percentage decliners.
The S&P Energy Index <.GSPE> dropped 1.1 percent.
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August crude futures <CLc1> lost 36 cents, or 0.6 percent,
to $60.05 per barrel; the price of oil was poised for the
biggest weekly fall since January.
Goldman Sachs' call on technology shares followed a
similar move by Banc of America-Merrill Lynch earlier in the
week, when it upgraded the U.S. semiconductor sector.
Reuckert said the technology sector could be set to
advance if the market starts to reverse recent defensive moves
into areas such as healthcare and consumer staples, especially
if earnings season surprises on the upside.
"It's really the growth stocks that are going to be in
focus throughout the earnings season," he said. "I would
really be looking at technology. When you think about growth
stocks, that's what pops into people's minds."
(Editing by Jan Paschal)
