U.S. Markets Snap 2-Week Losing Streak

Stocks rose for a second day, Friday, lifting the major averages to weekly gains as the White House and Congressional leaders continued work on legislation to raise the national debt limit and reopen the federal government. All 10 industry sectors in the S&P 500 ended with gains as investors largely shrugged off new data showing consumer sentiment falling to its lowest levels since January, instead extending a broad-based rally that began Thursday, snapping a two-week losing streak for equities.

U.S. Consumer Sentiment
Consumer sentiment as measured by the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan index fell to a preliminary score of 75.2, down from last month's 77.5 reading. Also Friday, U.S. retail sales last month missed analysts' estimates, with the private Retail Metrics gauge of same-store sales rising 4.0% in September, boosted by strong performance of drug stores last month. The market consensus was expecting a 4.1% rise.

Commodities were mixed. Crude oil for November delivery settled 99 cents lower at $102.02 per barrel while November natural gas was up 5 cents to $3.77 per 1 million BTU. December gold finished $28.60 lower at $1,268.40 per ounce while December silver slid 64 cents to $21.25 per ounce. December copper added 2 cents to $3.27 per pound.

Here's Where The U.S. Markets Stood At Day's End

• Dow Jones Industrial Average up 111.04 (+0.73%) to 15,237.11
• S&P 500 up 10.64 (+0.63%) to 1,703.20
• Nasdaq Composite Index up 31.12 (+0.83%) to 3,791.87

• Hang Seng Index up 1.16%
• Shanghai China Composite Index up 1.70%
• FTSE 100 Index up 0.88%

• (+) SCTY, Expects to deploy between 475 megawatts and 525 megawatts of solar panels in 2014.
• (+) SSW, Terminates previously announced public offerings of common stock and convertible notes, saying it would not be in the best interests of its shareholders.
• (+) INFY, Reported Q2 earnings of $0.73 per American depository share, ex one-time items, beating the Capital IQ consensus by $0.02 per share.

• (-) SGI, Preliminary Q1 earnings trail prior forecasts by at least $0.04 and lag Wall Street expectations by $0.05 per share or more.
• (-) GPS, Apparel retailer reports September net sales were essentially flat compared with year-ago levels; Same-store sales fall 3.0% last month.
• (-) MU, Chip-maker reduced to Underperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo.