Markets Close Mixed, Buffeted by Jobs Data and Syria Concerns

U.S. stocks had a mixed close after volatile trading on Friday, after job market data removed some uncertainty about Federal Reserve policy and after Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would maintain his long-standing support for Syria if the West were to attack.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index gained 0.09 points or 0.01 percent, closing at 1,655.17. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 14.98 points or 0.1 percent, to 14,922.50, and the Nasdaq Composite added 1.23 points or 0.03 percent, closing at 3,660.01.

For the week, the S&P 500 is up 1.04 percent and the Nasdaq is up 1.1 percent. The Dow is up 0.6 percent after four weekly declines.

The U.S. August payrolls report showed about 169,000 jobs were added, fewer than the 180,000 that had been expected, and July’s figure was revised sharply lower. The unemployment rate fell to 7.3 percent, its lowest since December 2008, though the decline reflected a drop in the share of working-age Americans who either have a job or are looking for one.

Many analysts said despite the weak jobs report the U.S. central bank would not adjust plans to slow its stimulus, currently at $85 billion a month in bond purchases.

Kansas City Fed President Esther George, a consistent hawk who has argued for a tapering in bond purchases all year, said reducing purchases to $70 billion a month could be “an appropriate next step toward normalizing monetary policy.”

Such a reduction would be in line with expectations that have been falling in the last few months.

“Tapering is going to happen but there is a wide range of opinions in terms of how much the Fed is going to taper,” said Joseph Tanious, global market strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management in New York.

“The market is comfortable with the idea (of winding down stimulus) as it is justified by economic growth,” he said, pointing to recent data including an almost eight year high in the pace of growth in the U.S. services sector.

Investors are continuing to assess the possibility of a U.S.-led strike against Syria in retaliation for an alleged chemical weapons attack against its civilians.

Putin made clear on Friday that Russia did not want to be sucked into a war over Syria, signaling that Moscow would maintain ongoing support to Damascus in the event of foreign military intervention.

Tanious said, getting clarity on Russia’s point of view helps ease some concerns about the implications of an attack on Syria, but any U.S. intervention is likely to impact oil and other markets.

“The (equities) market is jittery and that is understandable,” he said.

Energy prices have been among the most volatile on the issue, with investors concerned that military action in the Middle East will weigh on oil supplies. U.S. crude oil has spiked almost 4 percent over the past two weeks and was up 1.7 percent on Friday.

Facebook shares rose 3 percent to $43.95 after hitting $44.56, its highest since the stock’s debut on Nasdaq more than a year ago.

American Tower Corp rose 4.6 percent to $71.91 after the company agreed to buy Global Tower Partners for $4.8 billion.

E*Trade Financial shares jumped 4.6 percent to $16.26 after Goldman Sachs upgraded the brokerage’s stock to “buy” from “neutral” two days after the company received approval to use capital from its bank subsidiary for broader corporate purposes.

Congressional Talks on Syria Thwart Early Market Surge

The stock market rose modestly on Tuesday as renewed fears about an American military attack on Syria dampened an early rally.

Stocks surged in the opening minutes of trading as investors felt that a military strike on Syria was not imminent after President Obama announced over the weekend that he would seek Congressional approval before taking action. That move is expected to delay any attack until at least next week, when Congress returns from its summer recess.

But the early rally faded after the House speaker, John A. Boehner said he would support Mr. Obama’s call for military action. Mr. Boehner said the United States needed to respond to the Syria’s suspected use of chemical weapons. Representative Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, also voiced support.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 23.65 points, or 0.16 percent, to 14,833.96. The index had climbed as much as 123 points in early trading.

The Dow was also held back by Microsoft and Verizon, which both slumped after announcing deals.

The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index gained 6.80 points, or 0.42 percent, to 1,639.77. The Nasdaq composite index rose 22.74 points, or 0.63 percent, to 3,612.61.

The stock market also got an early boost from a report showing that manufacturing expanded last month at the fastest pace since June 2011. The report was better than economists had expected, according to estimates compiled by FactSet.

In corporate news, CBS shares rose $2.40, or 4.7 percent, to $53.50, after the broadcaster and Time Warner Cable reached an agreement that ended a blackout of CBS and CBS-owned channels. Time Warner Cable shares rose $1.90, or 1.8 percent, $109.25.

Other corporate news was disappointing. Microsoft stock fell $1.52, or 4.6 percent, to $31.88, after the software company said it would acquire Nokia’s smartphone business and a portfolio of patents and services for about $7.2 billion.

Verizon fell $1.37, or 2.9 percent, to $46.01, after the company agreed to pay $130 billion for Vodafone’s 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless.

After a tough August, stocks may struggle to rally in September because of a string of events that could shake investors, said Randy Frederick, managing director of active trading and derivatives at the Schwab Center for Financial Research.

The S.& P. 500 logged its worst performance last month since May 2012 as investors became increasingly concerned about when the Federal Reserve would cut its economic stimulus. The Fed’s next meeting, which starts Sept. 17, is when many on Wall Street think it will begin winding down its bond-buying program.

Lawmakers in Washington may also throw investors a curve ball. To keep the government running, Congress needs to pass a short-term spending bill before the fiscal year starts Oct. 1. Then there is the government’s $16.7 trillion borrowing limit. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew has warned that unless the debt ceiling is raised soon, the government would lose the ability to pay its bills by the middle of October.

September has often been a losing month for the stock market. Since 1945, the S.& P. 500 has slumped nearly six out of every 10 Septembers, with an average loss of 0.6 percent.

In government bond trading, the price of the 10-year Treasury note fell 20/32, to 96 28/32, while its yield rose to 2.86 percent, from 2.79 percent late Friday.

Markets Close Lower as Investors Wait for Decision About Syria

American stocks fell in a thinly traded session on Friday as investors avoided making large bets before a long weekend with the situation about Syria still uncertain.

Afternoon trading was volatile, with indexes swinging between break-even levels and solid losses as Secretary of State John Kerry said in televised remarks that Syria’s government used poison gas against civilians and made the case for a limited military response.

“People are uneasy not knowing what’s going on,” said John Carey, portfolio manager at Pioneer Investment Management in Boston. “With that uncertainty and going into the Labor Day holiday, we’re seeing people step back.”

The Dow Jones industrial average was down 30.64 points, or 0.21 percent, at 14,810.31. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index fell 5.20 points, or 0.32 percent, at 1,632.97. The Nasdaq composite index was down 30.44 points, or 0.84 percent, at 3,589.87.

Trading was light ahead of the market holiday on Monday for Labor Day. About 3.99 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, below the daily average so far this year of about 6.31 billion shares.

“I tend to view the weakness as a buying opportunity, barring some global crisis,” said Mr. Carey, who helps oversee about $200 billion in assets. “Syria isn’t the crisis in and of itself, but if we do take military action, there could be repercussions.”

It has been a tough month over all for stocks. The S.& P. 500 fell 3.1 percent in August and lost 1.8 percent for the week in a third decline in the last four weeks.

The Nasdaq fell 1.9 percent for the week while the Dow slid 1.3 percent in its fourth consecutive weekly loss. For the month, the Dow fell 4.4 percent and the Nasdaq lost 1 percent. Only one of the 30 Dow components, Microsoft, ended higher in August.

Almost 70 percent of stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange closed lower on Friday, while 73 percent of Nasdaq-listed shares ended in negative territory.

Video game companies were among the Nasdaq’s biggest decliners on Friday. Electronic Arts fell 3.37 percent, to $26.64, while Activision Blizzard fell 2.57 percent, to $16.32.

The chip maker OmniVision Technologies tumbled 16.08 percent on earnings weakness. It forecast current-quarter adjusted profit largely below expectations as rising competition and a slowdown of smartphone sales in the United States led to an inventory pileup.

Salesforce.com, the best performer in the S.& P. 500, jumped 12.55 percent, to $49.13, after the company raised its fiscal 2014 sales outlook and reported better-than-expected revenue and earnings. The Apache Corporation, the oil and gas producer, climbed 8.95 percent, to $85.68. The company said it was selling a 33 percent stake in its Egypt oil and gas business for $3.1 billion to the state-owned Chinese oil giant Sinopec Group.

The price of the benchmark 10-year Treasury note fell 8/32, to 97 16/32, and its yield rose to 2.79 percent, from 2.76 percent late Thursday.

Tough Talk on Syria Chills the Markets

The stock market sagged on Monday after the Obama administration ratcheted up its pressure against Syria.

Secretary of State John Kerry said there was “undeniable” evidence of a large-scale chemical weapons attack in Syria last week and suggested the administration was edging closer to a military response.

The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index slipped 6.72 points, or 0.4 percent, to close at 1,656.78. It was up 2 points just before Mr. Kerry began reading his statement.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 64.05 points, or 0.4 percent, to close at 14,946.46. The Nasdaq composite index slipped 0.2 of a point, to 3,657.57.

With four trading days left in August, the major indexes are on track to end the month with slight losses. So far this month, the Dow has fallen more than 3.5 percent. If that holds, it would be the Dow’s worst month since May 2012.

A handful of corporate deals helped give the market a lift early in the day.

Amgen, the biotech giant, surged $8.15, or 8 percent, to $113.75 following its announcement late Sunday that it plans to buy Onyx Pharmaceuticals for $10.4 billion in cash, or $125 a share. The acquisition would give Amgen three approved cancer treatments and several other potential drugs. Onyx rose $6.53, or 6 percent, to $123.49.

Shares of TMS International jumped $1.91, or 12 percent, to $17.48 after members of the Pritzker family agreed to buy the industrial company for about $690 million in cash, or $17.50 a share. The Pritzker family, one of America’s wealthiest, operates a global industrial conglomerate and founded the Hyatt hotel chain.

In economic news, the government reported that orders for long-lasting manufactured goods plunged 7.3 percent last month, the steepest drop in nearly a year. Demand for commercial aircraft sank, and businesses spent less on computers and electrical equipment. Excluding the transportation category, however, the index fell only 0.6 percent.

Jack Ablin, the chief investment officer at BMO Private Bank in Chicago, said investors would probably look past the one bad economic report because so many major events were coming up.

The Federal Reserve will start a two-day meeting Sept. 17 at which its policy makers will discuss gradually phasing out their economic stimulus program. After that, Germany holds national elections that could change how the euro zone handles rescue loans for troubled countries. Congress returns from its summer break next week and will take up a new budget before the fiscal year starts on Oct. 1.

“These issues are big enough to transcend daily data,” Mr. Ablin said.

Among the stocks on the move on Monday, Anadarko Petroleum climbed $1.22, or 1 percent, to $91.02. The oil and gas producer said late Sunday that it was selling part of its stake in a natural-gas site off the shores of Mozambique for $2.64 billion.

Tesla, the electric-car maker, climbed $2.38, or 1 percent, to $164.22, following reports that its Model S outsold Cadillac, Porsche, Jaguar and other brands in June in California.

In the bond market, interest rates eased. The price of the Treasury’s 10-year note rose 9/32, to 97 17/32, while its yield fell to 2.79 percent, from 2.82 percent late Friday.

Dell Products Make Their Way, Circuitously, to Syria

The disclosure of the computer sales is the latest example of how the Syrian government has managed to acquire technology, some of which is used to censor Internet activity and track opponents of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad.

According to internal company e-mails, cash transfer statements, sales receipts and shipping documents, the computer equipment was sold by BDL Gulf, which is based in Saudi Arabia and is a large distributor of computer equipment in the Middle East. It is an authorized dealer for Dell in the Middle East and Africa, and is also a reseller for other computer brands, including Samsung and Acer.

BDL sold the equipment to Anas Hasoon Trading, a Damascus-based company with contracts to provide computers to the Syrian government, according to billings records and e-mail exchanges between the companies.

Jess Blackburn, a spokesman for Dell in Round Rock, Tex., confirmed that BDL was an authorized reseller. He said the company was recently made aware of a possible shipment of Dell equipment to Syria by an anonymous source.

“We are investigating an allegation we received recently that BDL was involved in a possible transaction involving Syria,” Mr. Blackburn said in a statement. “Dell requires its resellers to follow U.S. trade requirements, just as Dell does. Resellers of Dell products and services are contractually prohibited from selling or shipping any technology to a customer in a restricted country.”

The United States has barred the sales of most American-made goods to Syria for nearly a decade and has repeatedly tightened sanctions against the government. An executive order by President Obama, dated April 22, 2012, specifically addresses the sale of computer technology to Syria, barring Americans from helping the Iranian and Syrian governments engage in human rights abuses, including monitoring and tracking of dissidents.

United States officials charged with enforcing sanctions against Syria would not comment on the possible violation of export sanction laws but did say that exporting technology to Syria was illegal unless the sale would promote the free flow of information between the Syrian people and the outside world.

Asked about the evidence of shipments to Syria, a manager at BDL said the company had hundreds of customers and did not keep track of their locations.

“We cannot know if they are from Pakistan, Egypt or Morocco; we just sell in Dubai,” said RamaNarayan Singh, who is listed as BDL’s sales manager for the United Arab Emirates, Africa and Iran. “I’m just an employee doing my duty. I don’t know if a company is from Syria.”

But e-mails between Mr. Singh and a representative from Anas Hasoon Trading show that the Syrian company made it clear to him that it was working on behalf of the Assad government. Mr. Singh signed several invoices that listed a Syrian address for the trading company. Mr. Singh said he did not recall the e-mails or the invoices.

The records, which were provided to The Times by an individual who was briefed on the transactions, showed that BDL sold hundreds of laptops, tablets and desktop computers to the Syrian company.

In e-mails sent between Mr. Singh and Yahya Rifai, who was listed as a purchasing manager for the Anas Hasoon Trading company, Mr. Rifai mentioned several times that he was working to buy the computers for the Syrian government.

The companies dealt mainly in cash, records showed, after transfers from Syrian banks to banks in Dubai were rejected because of financial sanctions against the country.

In an e-mail to Mr. Singh dated Sept. 2, 2012, Mr. Rifai wrote about his difficulties in using bank transfers to pay for the computers because of the sanctions.

“Dear Ram, my problem is how to get money from Syria to you? As you know I’m working on tenders deals with the government which required many documents and approvals!!” he wrote.

“Try please do not worry,” Mr. Singh wrote in response. “I will support you whatever best for you.”

Barred by banks from making electronic transfers, Mr. Rifai made several large cash deposits into the bank account of BDL to purchase the computers, the documents show. Asked last month about the purchases, Mr. Rifai responded in an e-mail: “We are Syrian company so we don’t care about the rules America put, its only for American companies not us.”

Last year, the Syrian government made similar purchases of computer equipment from a reseller of Hewlett-Packard. The equipment, according to various news reports, was used to monitor the e-mail and Internet use of opposition forces. Hewlett-Packard said its computers were sold without its knowledge.

In 2011, Internet-blocking devices from Blue Coat Systems, of Sunnyvale, Calif., were shipped to Syria from Dubai. Blue Coat thinks the gear was sold to the Iraqi government.

“It’s a pattern that we’ve seen across the Middle East from governments trying to avoid democratic changes — using proxies to bypass sanctions and buy equipment to stifle dissent and track Internet activity,” said Charles Dunne, a former National Security Council official and director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Freedom House, a Washington nonprofit group that promotes democratic change. “The U.S. government and companies need to do a better job of making sure this equipment does not end up in the hands of governments like the Assad regime.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: May 3, 2013

An earlier version of this article and an accompanying picture erroneously identified Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia as the owner of BDL Gulf. Representatives of Prince Alwaleed said that neither he nor his senior advisers are aware of any connection between the prince and BDL Gulf.

Richard Engel of NBC Is Freed in Syria

The journalists were unharmed. The news organization released a short statement that said, “We are pleased to report they are safely out of the country.”

The identities of the kidnappers and their motives were unknown. But an article on the NBC News Web site quotes Mr. Engel as saying their captors “were talking openly about their loyalty to the government” of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Their kidnapping once again highlights the perils of reporting from Syria, which is said by the Committee to Protect Journalists to be “the world’s most dangerous place for the press.”

NBC declined to specify the number of crew members that were with Mr. Engel. Two of the crew members, John Kooistra and Ghazi Balkiz, appeared with Mr. Engel on NBC’s “Today” show on Tuesday morning. A third, Aziz Akyavas, spoke at a news conference in Turkey. Mr. Akyavas said in an interview on the Turkish television channel NTV that a technician who traveled with the crew was still missing. NBC did not respond to a request for comment about that report.

Mr. Engel and the crew members covertly entered Syria several times this year to report on the insurgency that is fighting Mr. Assad there. Mr. Engel was last seen on television last Thursday in a taped report from Aleppo, Syria’s commercial capital, where he reported that “the Syrian regime appears to be cracking, but the rebels remain outgunned.”

In order to transmit their report in safety, Mr. Engel and his crew apparently crossed the border into Turkey. Their effort to cross back into the country on Thursday led to their capture.

About 15 men, Mr. Engel said on the “Today” show, “just literally jumped out of the trees and bushes” and “dragged us out of the car.” The kidnappers killed one of the rebels whom the crew had been traveling with, he said.

NBC’s Web site said there was “no claim of responsibility, no contact with the captors and no request for ransom during the time the crew was missing.”

Mr. Engel said on “Today” that the kidnappers had a plan to exchange the crew for several people being held by Syrian rebels. “We were told that they wanted to exchange us for four Iranian agents and two Lebanese people who are from the Amal movement,” he said.

But the crew members were freed when the captors “ran into a checkpoint manned by members of the Ahrar al-Sham brigade, a Syrian rebel group,” NBC’s Web site reported. “There was a confrontation and a firefight ensued. Two of the captors were killed, while an unknown number of others escaped.” The rebels then helped escort the crew to the border with Turkey.

“We are very happy to be back in Turkey,” Mr. Engel said, speaking in front of cameras at Cilvegozu border gate in southern Turkey. He added, “The last five days are the days that we want to forget.”

NBC tried to keep the crew’s disappearance a secret for several days while it sought to ascertain their whereabouts. Its television competitors and many other major news organizations, including The New York Times, refrained from reporting on the situation, in part out of concern that any reporting could worsen the danger for the crew. News outlets similarly refrained from publishing reports about a 2008 kidnapping in Afghanistan of David Rohde of The New York Times and a local reporter, Tahir Ludin. The two reporters escaped in June 2009 after seven months in captivity.

In the case of Mr. Engel, some Web sites reported speculation about his disappearance on Monday. NBC declined to comment until the crew members were safely out of Syria on Tuesday.

While none of the crew members suffered any physical injuries, there was “psychological pressure,” Mr. Akyavas told NTV. He said they were blindfolded, handcuffed, and “every now and then had guns pointed on our heads. It was not pleasant.”

In his comments on “Today” Mr. Engel said: “They made us choose which one of us would be shot first, and when we refused there were mock shootings. They pretended to shoot Ghazi several times.”

The crew members were also filmed for a video that showed them being held in a small, nondescript room.

Mr. Engel is perhaps the best-known foreign-based correspondent on television in the United States. Hop-scotching from Iraq to Afghanistan to Egypt and other countries in recent years, he has had more airtime than any other such correspondent at NBC, ABC or CBS. Thus the news of his kidnapping and safe release is likely to generate widespread interest from viewers.

Mr. Engel has worked for NBC since May 2003, two months into the Iraq war. He was promoted to chief foreign correspondent in 2008. At the time, the NBC News president Steve Capus said, “There aren’t enough superlatives to describe the work that Richard has done in some of the most dangerous places on earth for NBC News. His reporting, his expertise on the situation in the Middle East, his professionalism and his commitment to telling the story of what is happening there is unparalleled.”

The “NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams has been among Mr. Engel’s most ardent fans. Without alluding to his disappearance, Mr. Williams brought up Mr. Engel while being interviewed onstage at a charity fund-raiser in New Jersey on Sunday night. “What I know about Richard Engel is, he’s fearless, but he’s not crazy,” Mr. Williams said. When Mr. Engel’s name came up, there was spontaneous applause from the crowd.

Brian Stelter reported from New York and Sebnem Arsu from Istanbul. Bill Carter contributed reporting from New York.