NEW YORK, March 31 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks ended a solid quarter with the barest of moves on Thursday, as investors looked ahead to Friday's U.S. jobs report to provide a catalyst to push indexes to new highs for the year.
For the day, based on the latest available data, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 30.88 points, or 0.25 percent, to end unofficially at 12,319.73. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was down 2.43 points, or 0.18 percent, to finish unofficially at 1,325.83. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 4.28 points, or 0.15 percent, to close unofficially at 2,781.07.
For the quarter, the Dow gained 6.4 percent, while the S&P rose 5.4 percent and the Nasdaq added 4.8 percent.
Also, the S&P small-cap index <.SML> closed at a new all-time high.
(Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Jan Paschal)