A rally in stocks fizzled, leaving major indexes with modest gains on Friday, as Wall Street was torn between hope that U.S. economic data signals better times ahead and fear Europe's debt crisis will engulf world economies.

About 8.9 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE Amex and Nasdaq, higher than this year's average of 7.9 billion.

Trading was choppy due to "quadruple-witching," the expiration of four types of futures contracts -- equity options, stock index futures, stock index options and single stock futures.

After an early rally, buying dried up when rating agency Fitch warned of risk of recession in Europe.

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI was down 2.42 points, or 0.02 percent, at 11,866.39. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index .SPX was up 3.91 points, or 0.32 percent, at 1,219.66. The Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC was up 14.32 points, or 0.56 percent, at 2,555.33.

For the week, the Dow fell 2.7 percent, the S&P lost 2.9 percent and the Nasdaq was down 3.5 percent. (commentary & photo courtesy of Reuters)

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The RSI portfolio put in a respective performance performance with all but one position, VXX, showing a gain today. During the day I opened a position in CVY, which I reviewed in yesterday’s blog. This holding adds to the income producing portion of the portfolio and slants it more to the “risk off” bias.

Have a great weekend.