Market diary.

The markets turned in strong performances for the week ending July 18 on news of continued strong consumer spending and a wave of major deals. The Dow Jones industrial average rallied to briefly top 14,000 before settling back on July 18 after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bemanke gave a mixed assessment of the economy. The Dow closed the week up 2.5 percent to 13,918.20. The Nasdaq and Standard & Peers 500 indices each rose 1.8 percent to close at 2,699.49 and 1,546.17 respectively. But the LABJ index of 200 local stocks lagged, closing up only 1.1 percent to 145.47 as 101 stocks fell and 89 advanced. Only three of the 18 industry sectors reported declines, led by a 2.9 percent drop in financial services stocks. Dragging the financial stocks down was a 25 percent drop in the share price to $19.34 of PFF Bancorp Inc., which announced July 11 it was taking a charge for loan losses related to the soft construction market. Besides PFF, six other financial services stocks hit 52-week lows. Twenty-one stocks hit 52-week highs, including Glendale-based IHOP Corp., which rose 15 percent to $63.30 after the pancake house chain announced a $1.9 billion deal to buy casual dining chain Applebee's International Inc. Also, shares of Pomona-based Keystone Automotive Group Inc. shot up 10.6 percent to $47.03 on news that Chicago-based LKQ Corp. was buying the firm for $611 million.