Major Averages Close Higher For The Session But Lower For The Week

(RTTNews) - After moving moderately higher in early trading on Friday, stocks accelerated to the upside in the afternoon before closing sharply higher. The strong gains on the day partly offset the substantial pullback that was seen in the previous session.

Electronic storage stocks showed a strong move back to the upside on the day after trending lower over the past two weeks. The NYSE Arca Disk Drive Index advanced by 1.8 percent after ending the previous session at its lowest closing level in over a month.

SanDisk (SNDK) helped to lead the storage sector higher, with the flash memory cards maker surging up by 2.3 percent.

Considerable strength was also visible among trucking stocks, as reflected by the 1.6 percent gain posted by the Dow Jones Trucking Index. The index bounced well of the more than one-month closing low set on Thursday.

Oil service stocks also turned in a strong performance, moving higher along with the price of crude oil. With crude for November delivery jumping $1.01 to $93.54 a barrel, the Philadelphia Oil Service Index rose by 1.5 percent.

Defense, railroad, and semiconductor stocks also saw notable strength on the day, while gold stocks bucked the uptrend amid a decrease by the price of the precious metal.

The major averages gave back some ground going into the close but remained firmly positive. The Dow jumped 167.35 points or 1 percent to 17,113.15, the Nasdaq surged up 45.45 points or 1 percent to 4,512.19 and the S&P 500 advanced 16.86 points or 0.9 percent to 1,982.85.

Despite the gains on the day, the major averages all moved notably lower for the week. The Dow slumped by 1 percent, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq tumbled by 1.4 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively.