U.S. stocks slide amid "fiscal cliff" anxiety

The U.S. stocks traded lower on Friday as a setback for the ongoing "fiscal cliff" talks in Washington aroused worries about the country's economic prospects.
U.S. House Speaker John Boehner failed to get enough support for his "Plan B," which proposes tax hikes for American households earning over 1 million U.S. dollars a year. The news tempered hope that a budget deal would be reached quickly.

"How we get there, God only knows," media reports quoted Boehner as saying on Friday, referring to the goal of beating the Jan. 1 deadline.
"We still have to think of a 2-percent fiscal drag on the economy in the first half of 2013," Otto Waser, chief investment officer at Research & Asset Management AG in Zurich, said on television on Friday.
Some share options were supposed to expire on Friday, the last full day of trading before Christmas, which fortified expectations for choppy trading.
Early this week, the main stock indexes were bolstered by market optimism that the White House and Congress would reach an agreement in their fiscal negotiations.
Wall Street was somewhat underpinned by upbeat U.S. economic data released on Friday. Unemployment rates dropped in 45 U.S. states and the District of Columbia in November, and were unchanged in the remaining five states, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Meanwhile, U.S. demand for durable goods climbed 0.7 percent in November, indicating that companies were planning to expand next year. Personal income of Americans rose 0.6 percent last month -- the biggest pace of growth since February -- after falling 0.3 percent a month earlier. U.S. consumer spending also added 0.4 percent in November.
However, the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index decreased to 72.9 in December, the weakest reading since July. The figure was also lower than a preliminary report earlier this month.
In late trading, all main indexes rebounded modestly, offsetting part of the earlier losses.
In terms of individual stocks, Halozyme Therapeutics jumped 27. 36 percent after it announced on Friday morning that it has entered into a worldwide Collaboration and License Agreement with Pfizer to develop and commercialize products combining proprietary Pfizer biologics with Halozyme's Enhanz technology.
BlackBerry maker Research In Motion fell 22.73 percent on Friday as investors worried about a new service-fee structure that threatens one of the company's biggest cash generators.
The banking sector was among Friday's top losers. Citigroup slid 1.69 percent to 39.49 dollars, while Bank of America dropped 2.00 percent to 11.29 dollars.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 120.88 points, or 0. 91 percent, to 13,190.84. The broader S&P 500 Index slumped 13.54 points, or 0.94 percent, to 1,430.15. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 29.38 points, or 0.96 percent, to 3,021.01.
The U.S. stock market will be open for a half-day session on Monday, and will close on Tuesday for Christmas.
In oil price, U.S. light, sweet crude for February delivery lost 1.47 dollars, or 1.63 percent, to settle at 88.66 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. For the week, it gained 2.23 percent.
The U.S. dollar went up against most major currencies on Friday, as investors rushed into safe-haven assets such as the greenback and gold for the deadlocked fiscal talks.