Stocks closed near their session highs Friday, lifting the Dow Industrials and the S&P 500 indices to weekly gains for the second week in a row, representing the biggest weekly gains so far this year. Shares overcame initial selling pressure that followed a surprise drop in industrial production last month, while an unchanged measure of consumer sentiment was comforting in its lack of surprise and U.S. export and import prices posted a small rise during January. Blue-chips led the markets higher Friday, while all 10 sectors in the S&P 500 finished with advances.
Industrial production declined by 0.3% in January with weather-related declines in mining and manufacturing offsetting gains in heating demand output. The Street was looking for a modest 0.2% gain. Capacity utilization was also worse than expected, declining to 78.3% from a revised 78.9% in December, trailing the consensus estimate looking for a small improvement to 79.3%.
Prices for U.S. goods and services sold abroad climbed 0.2% last month, the fourth rise in the past five months, the Labor Department said. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected the reading would be flat. Import prices also rose last month, increasing 0.1%.
Also Friday, the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary index of consumer sentiment this month remained unchanged at January's final read of 81.2. The Street was expecting to see sentiment deteriorate to 80.5.
Commodities
Crude oil for March delivery settled 5 cents lower at $100.30 per barrel while March natural gas slipped 1 cent to finish at $5.21 per 1 million BTU. April gold rose $18.60 to $1,319.00 per ounce while March silver added $1.03 to settle at $21.42 per ounce. March copper rose 1 cent to $3.26 per pound.
Here's Where The Markets Stood At Week's End
- Dow Jones Industrial Average up 126 (+0.8%) to 16,154.39
- S&P 500 up 8 (+0.5%) to 1,838.63
- Nasdaq Composite Index up 3 (+0.1%) to 4,244.03
GLOBAL SENTIMENT
- Hang Seng Index up 0.60%
- Shanghai China Composite Index up 0.83%
- FTSE 100 Index up 0.06%
UPSIDE MOVERS
- (+) LCAV, Climbs to new 52-week high after agreeing to $106.4 mln buyout from PhotoMedex (PHMD). LCAV shareholders will receive $5.37 a share - a 34% premium over Wednesday's close. Deal seen adding to PHMD FY14 earning.
- (+) QBAK, Tops $2 a share for first time in four years after narrowing Q2 net loss by nearly 86% from last year, posting $0.02 per share loss. Revenue climbs 2.4% year over year to $3.44 mln. No analyst estimates were available for comparison.
- (+) LOGM, Shares rally to their best level in nearly three years after the Internet messaging and data storage firm reported non-GAAP earnings and revenue during its December quarter that beat analyst forecasts. The stock also received a fresh upgrade to Buy with a $48 price target at Needham & Co.
DOWNSIDE MOVERS
- (-) ADAT, Narrows net loss by 36% from the same quarter last year, recording $0.07 per share loss in fiscal Q2. Revenue increases 39% over year-ago period to $1.5 million. No analyst estimates were available for comparison.
- (-) TRLA, Q4 EPS of $0.03 misses by $0.04 per share. Revenue jumps 141.4% year over year to $49.7 mln, edging Capital IQ consensus by $330,000. Guides Q1, FY14 revenue in-line with Street view looking for $53.1 mln, $245.22 mln, respectively.
- (-) GNC, Q4 earnings of $0.63 per share, ex items, misses by $0.02. Revenue climbs 8.6% over year-ago levels to $613.7 mln, trailing consensus view by $18.2 mln. Sees FY14 EPS of $3.18 to $3.24, ex items, lagging expectations by $0.20 per share.
After Hours Stock News From Midnight Trader.
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