WEEKLY UPDATE – Stocks in Stockholm suffered heavy losses an hour before closing after Goldman Sachs was charged with fraud.

• European stocks dip as travel chaos hits airlines

While European main markets weakened at the start of trade Friday morning, after U.S. jobless claims rose and China took steps to cool its real-estate market, shares in Stockholm gained, boosted by the industrial sector.

However, stocks in Stockholm suffered heavy losses just an hour before closing following an announcement that US authorities had charged top investment group Goldman Sachs with fraud linked to the sub-prime mortgage meltdown.

The OMX Stockholm 30 index closed down 0.29 percent after being in the black most of the day. Compared to a week ago shares were up 1.30 percent.

SKF rose more than 7 percent Friday after the world's biggest bearing maker reported better-than-expected first-quarter results. Also shares in other industrial companies sensitive to market fluctuations, Sandvik, Atlas Copco and Alfa Laval, increased.

Shares in Ericsson rose slightly as Japanese-Swedish enterprise Sony Ericsson, the world's fourth biggest mobile phone maker, posted a surprise first-quarter profit Friday after several loss-making quarters.

Scandinavian airline SAS plunged Thursday as hundreds of flights were cancelled as volcanic ash from Iceland swept across northern Europe. The troubled airline said that the loss of revenue would amount to “at least double-digit millions of kronor every day”. Shares continued down Friday.

Wallenberg’s powerful holding company Investor AB said Wednesday that its net asset value rose 5 percent to 150.3 billion kronor ($21.09 billion) at the end of the first quarter compared to the end of 2009. The company's performance is considered a reliable indicator of the state of the Swedish economy as it has stakes in nearly all of Sweden's major companies.

Shares in the truck maker Scania were up more than 7 percent Tuesday as its first-quarter profit margins were way above analysts' forecast.

Hennes & Mauritz (H&M;), Europe's second largest fashion retailer, rose Tuesday as it said net profit in its first fiscal quarter increased 42 percent to 3.7 billion kronor.

Sweden’s Minister for Finance Anders Borg said Thursday, as he presented the 2010 Spring Fiscal Policy Bill, that economic recovery appears to be arriving sooner and turning out stronger than previously estimated – but that the economy is still fragile.

Since the turn of the year the OMX Stockholm 30 index is up 10.35 percent.

This article has been published at The Swedish Wire and Nasdaq OMX Nordic.