News that economic growth slowed during the spring gave the stock market a fitting end to a choppy July -- yet another back-and-forth day. {loadposition in-article} The Dow Jones industrial average, down almost 120 points in the first minutes of trading, recovered and seesawed throughout the session. The Dow was up 17 in late afternoon. The other major indexes also rose modestly. Traders opted for the safety of Treasury bonds, and that sent interest rates lower. But stocks were on track for their strongest month in a year. The Dow was up 7.1 percent going into Friday\'s trading. The Commerce Department said the gross domestic product, the broadest measure of the economy, grew at an annual pace of 2.4 percent from April to June. That\'s less than the 2.5 percent economists polled by Thomson Reuters had forecast. At first the report confirmed investors\' belief that the recovery is weakening as unemployment remains high and government stimulus programs end. Consumers cut back on their spending because of job worries and companies spent less to rebuild inventories. But analysts said that as investors read deeper into the report, it didn\'t look as bad as they initially thought. They found some good news in consumers\' savings rate. \"The consumer actually decided to save more,\" Jason Pride, director of investment strategy at Glenmeade, an investment management company. \"Consumers have done more to repair their balance sheets than thought.\" Pride said that means that those extra savings will eventually be spent, giving the economy a lift. Consumer spending accounts for the bulk of economic activity. Business spending on equipment and software jumped in the second quarter by the biggest amount in 13 years. That was encouraging, analysts said, because it means companies are eventually going to start adding jobs. \"Companies are spending and eventually it will turn into employment,\" said Ron Weiner, president and CEO at RDM Financial Group. It wasn\'t surprising that stocks gave up their gains and turned lower. Trading has been erratic as weak economic numbers have conflicted with companies\' generally good second-quarter earnings and forecasts for the rest of the year. Investors have been quick to cash in their gains because they don\'t have a sense of where the market is headed. In afternoon trading, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 17.48, or 0.2 percent, to 10,484.64. The Standard & Poor\'s 500 index rose 3.34, or 0.3 percent, to 1,104.87, while the Nasdaq composite index rose 9.09, or 0.4 percent, to 2,260.78. Rising stocks outpaced losers by about 2 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange where volume came to 745 million shares. Volume was extremely light even for a summer day. That continued a trend that has been seen for much of July. Analysts say many investors, uncertain about the where the market is heading, are staying on the sidelines or moving money into safer alternatives. That strategy sent Treasurys higher Friday. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its prices, fell to 2.91 percent from 2.99 percent. Its yield is often used as a benchmark for interest rates on mortgages and other consumer loans. A yield below 3 percent suggests investors are worried about long-term growth and don\'t fear inflation will be a problem anytime soon. Inflation is a threat to the long-term value of bonds. Investors got some mildly good news from two other economic reports. The University of Michigan/Reuters consumer sentiment index for July rose slightly more than expected to 67.8 from a preliminary reading of 66.5. Economists expected it to rise to 67. And the Chicago Purchasing Managers Index, which measures manufacturing activity in the Midwest, rose unexpectedly to 62.3 this month from 59.1 in June. Economists were expecting a drop to 56.5. The report is seen as an indicator of how the Institute for Supply Management\'s nationwide index is likely to come in when it\'s released on Monday. Traders were also being cautious because they\'re waiting for a series of key reports next week that will give a first look at how the economy is doing in the current quarter. The Institute for Supply Management releases its reports on the manufacturing and services sectors during July and the Labor Department issues its report on employment for this month. Economists predict the two ISM reports will show manufacturing and the services industry expanded in July but at a slower pace than in June. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate likely inched higher to 9.6 percent in July from 9.5 percent in June as the government laid off more temporary census workers. Private employers likely added 90,000 jobs during the month, slightly better than in June. Overseas markets mostly fell Friday after reports that Spain\'s credit rating is likely to be cut by Moody\'s Investors Service. The potential downgrade comes as the country\'s unemployment rate jumped to a 13-year high of 20.09 percent and the government continues to grapple with rising debt problems. Spain\'s IBEX 35 fell 1.2 percent. Britain\'s FTSE 100 fell 1.1 percent, Germany\'s DAX index rose 0.2 percent, and France\'s CAC-40 fell 0.2 percent. Japan\'s Nikkei stock average fell 1.6 percent. Warren E. Buffett has no immediate plans to retire, yet the 80 year old investor is believed to be grooming several possible successors at Berkshire Hathaway, The Wall Street Journal reported. {loadposition in-article} Li Lu, a Chinese hedge-fund manager who was once a student leader of the Tiananmen Square protests, is considered one of the top candidates for filling Mr. Buffett\'s shoes. The Journal reported:Mr. Li, 44 years old, has emerged as a leading candidate to run a chunk of Berkshire\'s $100 billion portfolio, stemming from a close friendship with Charlie Munger, Berkshire\'s 86-year-old vice chairman. In an interview, Mr. Munger revealed that Mr. Li was likely to become one of the top Berkshire investment officials. \"In my mind, it\'s a foregone conclusion,\" Mr. Munger said.Among other possible successors to Mr. Buffett\'s legacy is David L. Sokol, chairman of MidAmerican Energy Holdings at Berkshire and also chairman of NetJets, the private jet company also owned by Berkshire. However, The Journal noted that Mr. Buffett has said that he may split the investment duties from those of the role of chief executive when he steps down. Mr. Sokol has been seen as the contender for the C.E.O. role, while Mr. Li may be in line to fill Mr. Buffett\'s shoes in the investing arena, the newspaper said. Mr. Li has already brought some investment ideas to the table. He was responsible for introducing Mr. Munger to BYD Company, a Chinese battery and car maker that Berkshire Hathaway invested in, The Journal said. According to the newspaper, the BYD bet has already generated a six-fold return on Berkshire\'s investment. Meanwhile, Mr. Li\'s own investment performance hasn\'t been too shabby either. His hedge funds have posted a 26.4 percent annualized return since 1998., The Journal reported. Economic growth slowed in the second quarter as a capital investment drive by businesses saw imports increasing at their fastest pace since the first quarter of 1984, a government report showed on Friday. {loadposition in-article} Gross domestic product expanded at a 2.4 percent annual rate, the Commerce Department said in its first estimate, after a revised 3.7 percent growth pace in the January-March quarter. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast GDP, which measures total goods and services output within U.S. borders, growing at a 2.5 percent rate in the second quarter. The government had previously estimated a 2.7 percent growth rate for the first three months of this year. The economy, which is digging out of its longest and deepest recession since the 1930s, has now grown for four straight quarters. However, growth has been too tepid, making little impact on a high unemployment rate. The sluggish economy and a 9.5 percent unemployment rate are eroding President Barack Obama\'s popularity and dimming Democrats\' prospects in November\'s mid-term elections. A Reuters-Ipsos poll this week showed only a 34 percent approval of Obama\'s handling of the economy and jobs compared to 46 percent who deemed it unsatisfactory. This is a sharp decline from early 2009, shortly after he took office, when more than half of those surveyed approved of Obama\'s handling of the worst financial crisis in decades. Growth in the last quarter was held back by 28.8 percent surge in imports, which eclipsed a 10.3 percent rise in exports. That created a trade deficit, which lopped off 2.78 percentage points from growth, the largest subtraction since the third quarter of 1982. Outside the trade sector, however, details of the report were rather encouraging. Business investment rose at a 17 percent rate, the largest increase since the first quarter of 2006, after a 7.8 percent pace during the prior period. Spending on equipment and software was the largest since the third quarter of 1997, while investment on structures rose for the first time since the third quarter of 2008, likely boosted by a rise in oil and gas drilling. Growth during the second quarter was also supported by new home construction, which surged at a 27.9 percent rate after being a drag on growth in the first quarter, reflecting a spurt in building activity spurred by a popular homebuyer tax credit that has since expired. The rate of increase was the biggest since the third quarter of 1983. Residential investment had contracted at a 12.3 percent rate in the first quarter. But there were some areas of concern. The report showed consumer spending was not as robust as had been previously thought. Growth in consumer spending was at a 1.6 percent rate in the second quarter after increasing at a revised 1.9 percent in the first quarter. Consumer spending, which normally accounts for 70 percent of U.S. economic activity, had previously been estimated to have grown at a 3.0 percent rate in the first quarter. Spending added 1.15 percentage points to GDP last quarter. Business inventories increased $75.7 billion in the second quarter after a $44.1 billion rise in the first three months of the year. Inventories contributed 1.05 percentage points to GDP. Excluding inventories, the economy expanded at a 1.3 percent rate, picking up from a 1.1 percent pace in first quarter. The recession was deeper than the government previously thought. {loadposition in-article} The Commerce Department, in revisions issued Friday, estimates the economy shrank 2.6 percent last year -- the steepest drop since 1946. That\'s worse than the 2.4 percent decline originally estimated. The economy\'s plunge underscores why the unemployment rate surged to 10.1 percent in October, a 26-year high. The revisions in gross domestic product, or GDP, now show zero growth in 2008. That compares with a 0.4 percent gain previously estimated.The economy also grew less in 2007 (1.9 percent) than earlier thought (2.1 percent). For all three years, consumers spent less and home builders cut more deeply than had been thought. Those factors help explain the downward revisions on the economy. The revisions also show that struggling state and local governments cut spending more last year than previously thought. And they spent less in 2007 and 2008. The economy slid into its worst recession since the Great Depression in late 2007. Many economists think the recession ended last summer, although a panel of academics that dates the start and end of recessions hasn\'t declared when this one ended. The panel usually does so well after the fact. From the start of the recession in December 2007 until the April-to-June quarter of 2009, the economy sank 4.1 percent. That was deeper than the 3.7 percent decline previously estimated for the recession. GDP is the broadest gauge of the economy\'s health. It measures the value of all goods and services -- from machinery to manicures -- produced in the United States. The Commerce Department\'s latest revisions reach back to 2007. They\'re based on more complete data and on methodology thought to be more accurate. Social networking website Facebook Inc may postpone its initial public offering until 2012, Bloomberg said, citing three people familiar with the matter. {loadposition in-article} The move may give Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg more time to gain users and boost sales, but Zuckerberg could still push for a stock sale at any time, the agency said. Jonathan Thaw, a spokesman for Facebook, declined to comment, Bloomberg said. Facebook could not immediately be reached for comment by Reuters outside regular U.S. business hours. Zuckerberg said in a recent television interview Facebook will sell stock in an IPO \"when it makes sense.\"