* S&P gains 5.4 percent in first quarter
* Volume tops weekly average but remains light
* Berkshire class B shares fall after Sokol's resignation
* Dow off 0.25 pct, S&P down 0.18 pct; Nasdaq up 0.15 pct
* For up-to-the-minute market news see []
(Updates to close, changes byline)
By Rodrigo Campos
NEW YORK, March 31 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks ended a solid
quarter with the barest of moves on Thursday, as investors
looked ahead to Friday's U.S. jobs report to provide a
catalyst to push indexes to new highs for the year.
After gaining 5.4 percent in the first quarter, the
benchmark S&P 500 hovered near 1,330, a level the index has
been unable to break despite several attempts in the past
month. A strong payrolls number may tip it over and technical
momentum could kick in, lifting stocks further.
"The market has stalled around this area before," said Jim
Paulsen, chief investment officer at Wells Capital Management
in Minneapolis. "Unless we get a bad number tomorrow, this
market is going to make a run at the year highs."
Stocks were resilient through the first quarter, hanging
tough despite Japan's earthquake and nuclear crisis and a
series of uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East.
Friday's jobs report would confirm investor optimism that a
strong U.S. recovery can overcome the global trouble spots.
In March, the Dow industrials outperformed both the S&P
500 and Nasdaq, indicating preference for stronger companies
as overseas concerns lingered.
Initial claims for unemployment benefits last week showed
the trend of labor market improvement remains intact, but at a
slow pace.
The data precedes Friday's closely watched employment
report from the Labor Department, which is expected to show
the U.S. economy added 190,000 jobs in March. For details, see
[]
Daily volume was light again, continuing the week's
pattern. About 6.9 billion shares traded on the New York Stock
Exchange, NYSE Amex and Nasdaq, below last year's estimated
daily average of 8.47 billion.
The Dow Jones industrial average <> dropped 30.88
points, or 0.25 percent, to 12,319.73. The Standard & Poor's
500 <.SPX> dipped 2.43 points, or 0.18 percent, to 1,325.83.
The Nasdaq Composite <> edged up 4.28 points, or 0.15
percent, to 2,781.07.
For the month, the Dow edged up 0.76 percent, the S&P shed
0.1 percent and Nasdaq dipped 0.04 percent.
That trend also proved true for the entire first quarter,
with the Dow rising 6.4 percent, compared with the S&P's gain
of 5.4 percent and the Nasdaq's advance of 4.8 percent.
Berkshire Hathaway's class B shares <BRKb.N> fell 2.1
percent to $83.63 a day after the resignation of David Sokol,
the man widely seen as the leading successor to Warren Buffett
to run Berkshire. Sokol resigned after Buffett revealed that
Sokol had bought shares in chemical company Lubrizol Corp
<LZ.N> before pushing Buffett to acquire it.
In an interview on CNBC, Sokol said he did nothing wrong
in buying the shares. [] []
Retailers ranked among the worst performers, dragged lower
by Carmax Inc <KMX.N>, which lost 7.2 percent to $32.10 after
posting fourth-quarter earnings. The S&P Retail index <.RLX>
lost 0.76 percent, while the Morgan Stanley retail index
<.MVR> dropped 1.1 percent. []
Advancing stocks outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by
1,746 to 1,241, while on the Nasdaq, about four stocks rose
for every three that fell.
(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos, additional reporting by Chuck
Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)
