US stocks mostly lower on shortened 'Black Friday'

US stocks Friday closed a holiday-shortened session mostly lower despite some early statements by retailers reporting a successful launch to the critical holiday shopping season.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 10.92 (0.07 percent) at 16,086.41.

The broad-based S&P 500 declined 1.42 (0.08 percent) to 1,805.81, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index rose 15.14 (0.37 percent) to 4,059.89.

Retail giants Wal-Mart Stores and Target both reported "record" openings to the critical "Black Friday" shopping weekend, which kicks off the holiday shopping period. The period between Thanksgiving and New Year's accounts for about 20 percent of annual retail sector sales.

Despite the positive comments, analysts have expressed concerns that profits among retailers may suffer due to a hyper-competitive promotional market in which retailers are cutting prices to try to lure tight-fisted consumers in the low-growth economy.

Retail stocks had a mixed day. Walmart gained 0.1 percent, The Gap rose 0.5 percent and JC Penney tacked on 1.1 percent, while Target dipped 0.8 percent and Macy's lost 0.5 percent.

Technology stocks continued to ride high after the Nasdaq closed above 4,000 earlier this week for the first time in 13 years. Apple jumped 1.9 percent, Dow component Microsoft advanced 1.4 percent and eBay added 2.5 percent.

Agricultural giant Archer Daniels Midland fell 3.0 percent after Australia rejected its proposed $2.7 billion takeover of grain handler GrainCorp.

Australian Treasurer Joe Hockey said the sector was still moving towards more robust competition and that a foreign takeover of the biggest grain handler in eastern Australia could undermine public support for foreign investment in general.

Oil and gas producer Pioneer Natural Resources fell 0.7 percent after announcing that severe weather forced it to cut output in a number of major projects. The company said an "extensive recovery period is expected" and that the outages were not accounted for in previous forecasts.

Fortinet, a technology security company, tumbled 12.9 percent after announcing on the eve of the Thanksgiving holiday that chief financial officer Ahmed Rubaie would step down for "personal reasons."

Bond prices were unchanged. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury held steady at 2.74 percent, the same level as Wednesday, while the 30-year was flat at 3.81 percent. Bond prices and yields move inversely.