After eking out gains for most of the week, bank stocks fell Friday as investors took profits.
The KBW Bank Index fell 1.15% and ended the week up less than 1%.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.23%, and the Standard & Poor's 500 index 0.14% despite a report that the Reuters/University of Michigan consumer confidence index had jumped in early September to 70.2, from 65.7 in August.
Still, economists at Wells Fargo Securities expressed caution in a note Friday.
"Consumers are not likely to boost purchases of big-ticket discretionary items until they feel more confident about their employment and income prospects," the economists wrote. "As a result, the rise in consumer sentiment likely does not point to any major shift in consumer spending."
Decliners included JPMorgan Chase & Co., off 1.2%; Bank of America Corp., 1.5%; Wells Fargo & Co., 1.5%; Capital One Financial Corp., 0.5%; BB&T Corp., 0.8%; Regions Financial Corp., 1.6%, and Citigroup Inc., 14 cents, to $4.61 a share.
Gainers included PNC Financial Services Group Inc., up 2.3%; U.S. Bancorp, 0.6%; SunTrust Banks Inc., 2.2%; Marshall & Ilsley Corp., 1.8%, and Valley National Bancorp, 0.2%.
