Stocks end the day flat as early-session rally fades

Apple Inc , the world's most valuable company in terms of market value, lifted the broad stock market after the latest iPhone went on sale worldwide. The company's stock jumped to an all-time high of $705.07 earlier in the session. By late afternoon, Apple was up 0.5 percent at $702.10.

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News from Spain helped lift stocks after the debt-laden country said it was considering freezing pensions and speeding up a planned rise in the retirement age as it raced to cut spending and meet conditions of an expected international sovereign aid package.

"The Spain news was relatively small," said Joseph Greco, managing director of Meridian Equity Partners in New York, although he pointed out that "the euro-dollar currency play resulting from that news was definitely something that we spoke about. But it's been a lot of back and forth. I don't anticipate there will be much more room there."

Earlier, the S&P 500 hit an intraday high of 1,467.07, while the Nasdaq reached a session high of 3,196.93.

A quick and sharp sell-off in spot gold shortly after midday, driven by a rumor that the CME may raise margin requirements on commodities, weighed on financial services stocks, according to Greco. Many banks and other companies in the financial sector have high exposure to gold and other commodities, so any increase in margin requirements would affect them, Greco explained.

Spot gold later recovered to trade up 0.6 percent at $1,777.19 an ounce by 1:11 p.m. EDT on Friday, after hitting a session high of $1,787.20 -- close to its 2012 high of $1,790.30.

But financial shares were still slightly lower by late afternoon on Friday, with the S&P financial index down 0.1 percent.

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