US equity markets ended a strong week with modest losses, paring earlier gains late in the session after the Commerce Department barred five additional Chinese companies from buying US components without approval. - Dow down -34-points or -0.13% (to 26,719.13), flirting with record territory before a sell-off in the closing half hour of last Friday's (21 June) session left the index nursing a modest loss. The Dow traded as high as 26,907.37 and needed to settle above 3 October, 2016 closing level of 26,828.39 to notch a fresh record closing high. The broader S&P500 dipped -0.13% after scaling an intra-day all-time high of 2,964.15 - its first record high since April. The NASDAQ lost -0.24%, with chipmakers under pressure from the Commerce Department's decision. Micron Technology fell -2.6% and Advanced Micro Devices -3%. Friday night (21 June) session was 'quadruple witching', the simultaneous expiration of single-stock options and single-stock futures as well as index options and index futures . For the week, the Dow rose +2.41% and on course for strongest June performance since 1938. The rose S&P500 +2.20% to sit +17.7% higher year-to-date and is on track to record its best first half performance since 1997 (when the broader index gained +19.4% for the opening six months of the year). The Nasdaq outperformed with a +3.01% gain.
