Company: PulteGroup, Inc.

Stocks recovered from an early decline to end narrowly mixed Wednesday, but worries over the weak ADP employment report kept investors on edge ahead of Friday's key jobs data.

Shares of PulteGroup Inc. surged to a new 52-week high on Friday, a day after the homebuilder's stock gained 10 percent on positive first-quarter results.

PulteGroup Inc. said Thursday its first-quarter loss narrowed, boosted by higher home sale prices.

Stocks closed modestly higher Friday, but the Dow and S&P posted their worst weekly loss for the year after investors were rattled over slowdown fears in China and weak economic news from the euro zone.

It's the basic question when investing in a stock: is it on the way up or will it go down? To answer this question,  Wall Street has developed numerous ways of attempting to predict what will happen, estimating various attributes tied to stock performance in order to determine what the future holds for a company's valuation.

Stocks eased off their best levels in the final minutes of trading Monday but still managed to eke out a small gain, following a sharp rally from the previous week.

Stocks finished flat in a lackluster session Friday, but the major averages posted impressive weekly gains, with the Dow and S&P logging their best gains for the week since last December.

Stocks closed in the red Wednesday as Bernanke dashed hopes for further monetary stimulus during his speech to Congress on the economy. Still the S&P logged its best February since 1998 and the Nasdaq briefly topped 3,000 in intraday trading for the first time since December 2000.

Stocks closed near highs of the session Wednesday with the S&P finishing at its highest level since July 2011, buoyed by an optimistic report on Greece, which added fuel to an earlier rally after a better-than-expected housing market report.

It's the basic question when investing in a stock: is it on the way up or will it go down? To answer this question,  Wall Street has developed numerous ways of attempting to predict what will happen, estimating various attributes tied to stock performance in order to determine what the future holds for a company's valuation.

Stocks climbed steadily to finish near their best levels Thursday as the euro erased its drop versus the greenback and after a handful of better-than-expected economic data.

But volume remained thin in the final week of trading for the year.

Does the market seem almost schizophrenic to you? One day euphoria sends stocks surging, then the very next day fear sends investors running for the exits. Sick of it? We are, too.