Wall Street falls in afternoon; set to snap five weeks of gains

By Caroline Valetkevitch

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks were lower in afternoon trading on Friday, with energy shares extending recent losses after the Treasury department announced new sanctions against Russia.

The market was on track to break a five-week string of gains.

The S&P energy index, down 1.2 percent, was among the day's worst-performing sectors. The group has come under pressure this week, during which it has shed 3 percent as crude oil prices fell. Exxon Mobil Corp was down 1.1 percent and ConocoPhillips was down 1.2 percent.

The sanctions, designed to punish Russia for its intervention in Ukraine, affect oil and defense industries and further limit major Russian banks' access to U.S. debt and equity markets.

Shares of eBay were up 1.8 percent, among the most actively traded issues on Nasdaq. It pared earlier gains of as much as 4.7 percent after the company dismissed market speculation that Google Inc may be preparing to buy a slice of the company.

"There's been a little bit of a selloff over the last couple of days but nothing big. Maybe we're looking to overseas for some word of what's going on over there," said Joe Saluzzi, co-manager of trading at Themis Trading in Chatham, New Jersey.

The S&P 500 was on track for a loss of 1.1 percent for the week, which would break a five-week streak of gains.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down 68.2 points, or 0.4 percent, to 16,980.8, the S&P 500 lost 11.07 points, or 0.55 percent, to 1,986.38 and the Nasdaq Composite fell 20.65 points, or 0.45 percent, to 4,571.16.

The largest percentage gainer on the New York Stock Exchange was China Green Agriculture, which jumped 30.70 percent, while the largest percentage decliner was Hyperdynamics, down 8.05 percent.

Among the most active stocks on the NYSE were Sprint, up 6.29 percent to $6.98 and U.S.-listed shares of Petrobras, down 3.86 percent to $16.95.

Nasdaq's most active included Apple, up 0.6 percent to $102.05, and Yahoo, up 2.9 percent to $42.48.

Declining issues were outnumbering advancing ones on the NYSE by 2,433 to 607, for a 4.01-to-1 ratio; on the Nasdaq, 1,780 issues were falling and 869 advancing for a 2.05-to-1 ratio.

The broad S&P 500 index was posting 16 new 52-week highs and four new lows; the Nasdaq Composite was recording 53 new highs and 28 new lows.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum and Nick Zieminski)