Stock market declines as savings rate jumps

Investors are nervous about the savings rate outpacing spending. Stocks lost ground early Friday after the Commerce Department said personal spending, incomes and savings all rose in May. What troubled investors was that the savings rate soared to 6.9 percent, a 15-year high, while spending rose by a modest 0.3 percent. After the stock market's big jump Thursday, traders appeared eager to cash in some gains. In the first minutes of trading, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 51.02, or 0.6 percent, to 8,421.38. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 5.07, or 0.6 percent, to 915.19. The Nasdaq composite index fell 12.62, or 0.7 percent, to 1,816.92. The Dow rose 2.1 percent Thursday after four straight days of losses.