US stocks close broadly higher

Associated Press

Industrial companies led U.S. stocks higher Friday, giving the stock market its second gain in two days.

The rally was broad, with all 11 industry sectors in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index closing higher. That included energy stocks, which climbed as the price of crude oil rose.

The gains helped trim some of the losses that traders booked two days earlier when the stock market posted its worst day in eight months amid deepening political turmoil in Washington.

Investors appeared to shrug off those concerns Friday, preferring instead to focus on the latest batch of corporate earnings, which included solid results from Deere & Co. and other companies.

“If you took a week off, you probably thought you didn’t miss much, because we’re at about the same levels today as we were last Friday,” said Sean Lynch, co-head of global equity strategy at Wells Fargo Investment Institute. “And yet, we spiked to a new all-time high on the S&P on Monday, we suffered the worst decline of the year Wednesday, and again we’re back within 1 percent of that all-time high today.”

Investors had grown concerned Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s pro-business agenda could be hindered by fallout from allegations that he asked the FBI to end an investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, sparking the steep sell-off.

But they remained in a buying mood Friday, nudging U.S. stock indexes higher early on, extending modest gains from the day before.

“It’s clearly been a roller- coaster week, with equities being swayed between political uncertainty and improving fundamentals,” said Terry Sandven, chief equity strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management. Despite the tumult in Washington, “President Trump’s pro-growth agenda of tax reform, less regulation, infrastructure spend and the like, in our view, still remain drivers of higher stock prices.”