Investing.com -- Stocks on U.S. equities markets edged up on Friday to halt a four-day losing streak, as markets avoided their first streak of five consecutive daily losses since last March.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 34.43 or 0.19% to 17, 712.66, but still remained down for the year after moving into negative territory for 2015 earlier in the week. The NASDAQ Composite index and the S&P 500 Composite index both closed the week on a strong note after experiencing significant losses in recent days. Although the NASDAQ rose 27.86 or 0.57% to 4,891.22, it still closed on Friday with one of its worst weekly performance since last October.
The S&P 500, meanwhile, rose 4.87 points or 0.24% to close the week at 2,061.02. Nevertheless, the majority of the 10 sectors on the S&P 500 ended the week in the red. On Friday, the S&P 500 was led by gains in the Health Care, Consumer Goods and Consumer Services sectors, while the Oil & Gas, Basic Materials and Financial sectors lagged.
All three markets remained relatively unchanged in the short period between the release of Janet Yellen's notes of her prepared speech at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Conference and the markets' close. In the minutes before Yellen's speech at 3:45 EST, the Dow was only several points higher at 17,720. Yellen reiterated on Friday that an interest rate hike by the Fed may be warranted at some point this year.
The top performer on the Dow was Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC), which gained 1.92 points or 6.38% after Dow Jones reported that the company has put in a bid to purchase California-based Altera Corporation (NASDAQ:ALTR) on Friday afternoon. Altera, a Silicon Valley manufacturer of reconfigurable complex digital circuits, rose 9.82 or 28.39% to 44.39. Altera was the top performer on the NASDAQ and the S&P 500.
The worst performer on the Dow was Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX), which fell 0.97 or 0.92% to 104.28.
The worst performer on the NASDAQ was Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA), which fell 5.41 or 2.84% to 185.00. Transocean, one of the world's largest offshore drillers, also had a rough day on Friday. The Swiss-based company was the worst performer on the S&P 500, falling 0.84 or 5.48% to 14.49.