MARKET SNAPSHOT: U.S. Stock Indexes Finish Off Lows But Still Plunge For Week

By Kate Gibson

U.S. stocks on Friday rallied back from stiff losses to end mostly lower after the Dow Jones Industrial Average traded in a 1,000-point range in the final session of its worst week ever, as shaken investors looked for intervention from a meeting of global finance ministers.

The indexes had lunged sharply lower for an eighth straight day, with the Dow industrials sliding nearly 700 points at the start to fall under 8,000 for the first time since 2003 as fears escalated that the trauma in the credit markets could be paving the way toward a global recession.

In Washington, finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven nations are meeting, with economists looking to the gathering for coordinated measures to encourage banks to resume lending to each other. .

MARKET SNAPSHOT: U.S. Stocks Seek Relief From G7

By Nick Godt

U.S. stocks will enter next week with investors either comforted or disappointed by the meeting of the Group of Seven finance ministers and central bankers, who have gathered in Washington D.C. to address the global financial meltdown and its implications for the world's economies.

"I don't know what the G7 can do exactly," said Robert Pavlik, investment strategist at Oaktree Asset Management. "But if they can come out with a positive statement, after all this is a gathering of some of the most qualified people out there, then that will help market psychology."

Several hours after the close of trading Friday, G7 ministers and central bank governors pledged to work together to make sure that large important financial institutions do not fail. In a brief "plan of action" released after their meeting, the G7 said that the current market turmoil calls for exceptional action.

At the top of the list were unfreezing credit and money markets, ensuring banks can raise capital from the private sector, ensuring that deposit insurance regimes were robust, and repairing secondary mortgage markets where appropriate.