NEW YORK, April 14 (Xinhua) — U.S. stocks ended lower Friday on bigger-than-expected contraction of U.S. retail sales in March.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 143.22 points, or 0.42 percent, to 33,886.47. The S&P 500 was down 8.58 points, or 0.21 percent, to 4,137.64. The Nasdaq Composite Index fell 42.80 points, or 0.35 percent, to 12,123.47.

Seven of the 11 primary S&P 500 sectors ended in red with real estate and utilities sectors leading the laggards, down 1.68 percent and 1.11 percent respectively. Meanwhile, financials and communication services sectors led the gainers, up 1.05 percent and 0.31 percent respectively.

The United States recorded 691.7 billion U.S. dollars of retail and food services sales for March, down 1 percent from the previous month, according to data issued by the U.S. Census Bureau on Friday morning.

The month-on-month contraction was bigger than expectation of -0.4 percent while the month-on-month change in February was revised to -0.2 percent from -0.4 percent.

The spending slowdown was broad based, noted Michael Gapen, chief U.S. economist with the Bank of America.

U.S. retail sales still grew robustly in the first quarter thanks to the surge in January, but the sequential decline means a weak handoff to the second quarter, according to Gapen.

From the technical point of view, the S&P 500 Index made another attempt to settle above the 4,150 level but lost momentum and pulled back, according to Vladimir Zernov, analyst with market information supplier FX Empire.

Zernov said the S&P 500 Index needs to climb above the resistance at 4,150 to have a chance to gain sustainable upside momentum in the upcoming trading sessions.