(Reuters) - Stocks slipped on Friday as a session with sparse economic data gave investors little reason to push indexes higher, but the S&P 500 and Nasdaq remained on track for their eighth positive week in the last nine. The S&P 500 has traded in a tight range in the past two weeks, mostly holding on to a gain of nearly 9 percent since the beginning of the year.

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(Reuters) - Consumer review website Yelp Inc's shares traded more than 60 percent above their initial public offering price in their market debut on Friday, as investors rushed to buy a piece of the growing local advertising market. Yelp's stellar debut follows those of other Internet sensations like LinkedIn Corp, Groupon Inc and Zillow Inc. But while those stocks made large first-day gains, they have since declined.

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(Reuters) - Wall Street's biggest banks are locked in an increasingly frantic struggle with the Federal Reserve over the right to retain the jewels of their commodity trading empires: warehouses, storage tanks and other hard assets worth billions of dollars. While the battle over proprietary trading and new derivatives regulations has taken place largely in public view since the 2008 financial crisis, the fight by JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs to retain or expand their prized physical commodity operations - most acquired in only the past six years - has remained hidden.

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(Reuters) - The U.S. economic recovery could be dented by a renewed drop in housing prices in the short term and the country lacks a "credible, comprehensive" fiscal plan, posing a major medium-term economic risk, a top IMF official said. International Monetary Fund Deputy Managing Director Min Zhu also urged the European Central Bank not to hesitate to use unconventional monetary policies to help spur growth, repeating the Fund's forecast for the euro zone to experience a mild recession in 2012.

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(Reuters) - All but two European Union countries signed a treaty on tighter budget discipline for the euro zone on Friday, marking a coup for Germany which pushed for the accord to try to prevent a repeat of the loose spending that led to a debt crisis. Only Britain and the Czech Republic did not sign the 'fiscal compact', under which countries in the euro zone are bound to write a 'golden rule' on balanced budgets into their national constitutions or equivalent laws, with automatic correction mechanisms if the rule is breached.

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(Reuters) - Stocks rose on Thursday, extending this year's near-uninterrupted rally as investors jumped on recent momentum, though equities eased from session highs after a weak reading on manufacturing. Some strong February chain-store sales along with encouraging labor market data boosted optimism, with nine of ten S&P sectors in positive territory.

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(Reuters) - Growth in U.S. manufacturing unexpectedly cooled in February and consumer spending was flat in January for the third straight month after accounting for inflation, casting a pall over the economic outlook. The Institute for Supply Management said on Thursday its index of national factory activity fell to 52.4 last month from 54.1 the month before. The reading was shy of expectations of 54.5.

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(Reuters) - Major automakers including General Motors Co posted a rise in auto sales for the month of February, helped by American drivers' need to replace aging cars and trucks despite the rise in fuel prices. GM, Ford Motor Co and Chrysler Group LLC each predicted that the annualized sales rate in February would top even the high end of analysts' expectations.

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(Reuters) - The possibility of a sharp global slowdown has eased due to recent policy measures adopted in the euro zone to tackle its debt crisis, the International Monetary Fund said on Thursday, although it warned that risks to global growth remain "squarely to the downside." In a report to G20 finance ministers in Mexico at the weekend, and only published on Thursday, the IMF said the euro zone should act decisively on multiple front to successfully resolve its sovereign debt crisis.

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(Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc raised its annual dividend by nearly 9 percent on Thursday, as momentum in the company's key Walmart U.S. chain has rebounded. The world's largest retailer said that its board approved a dividend of $1.59 per share in fiscal 2013, which ends next January, up from $1.46 last year. That equates to paying about $5.52 billion to shareholders. Wal-Mart has also been a big buyer of its shares. It announced a $15 billion share repurchase plan in June.

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