NEW YORK — Technology and energy companies skidded Friday while banks and insurers recovered some of their recent losses, leaving major U.S. indexes little changed on the day and moderately lower for the week.

Credit monitoring company Equifax plunged after it disclosed a data breach that affects 143 million Americans. Competitors TransUnion and Experian also fell, while data security companies like Symantec jumped as investors expected they will get more business.

Grocery stores and food companies slumped as Kroger said stiff competition forced it to cut prices. Target also said it is lowering prices. Technology companies including Apple, Facebook, Intel and chipmakers weakened.

Experts think the hurricanes in Texas and Florida will slow down U.S. economic growth in the third quarter. While that’s likely to be temporary, David Chalupnik, head of equities at Nuveen Asset Management, said the effect on the stock market could linger because it will be hard for investors to tell how much of any individual company’s problems are caused by the weather.

“The next couple of months are going to be pretty cloudy,” Chalupnik said. He said insurance companies, cruise lines, and oil refiners based in the Gulf Coast or Southeast could take losses and bad debt at credit card companies will increase, and since the storm will push the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates lower for a bit longer, that will hurt banks by keeping interest rates low on loans.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index lost 3.67 points, or 0.1 percent, to 2,461.43. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 13.01 points, or 0.1 percent, to 21,797.79. The Nasdaq composite dropped 37.68 points, or 0.6 percent, to 6,360.19. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks rose 0.76 points, or 0.1 percent, to 1,399.43. More stocks fell than rose on the New York Stock Exchange.


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