Stocks - Wall Street Rises Slightly Even as Trade, Political Risks Remain 

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Investing.com – Wall Street inched higher on Friday as the fallout from the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump was somewhat offset by hopes of progress in trade talks between the U.S. and China and by a drop in oil prices.

The Dow rose 80 points or 0.3% by 9:44 AM ET (13:44 GMT), while the S&P 500 was up 5 points or 0.3% and the Nasdaq composite gained 6 points or 0.1%.

“We hope both sides can take more enthusiastic measures, reduce pessimistic language and actions," China's foreign minister Wang Yi said on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. "If everyone does this, talks will not only resume, but will proceed and yield results.”

A new round of talks is due to start on Oct. 10.

Markets have been volatile on developments regarding the impeachment inquiry into Trump by the House of Representatives earlier this week, while consumer spending data in August suggested the economy is slowing slightly after a strong acceleration in the second quarter.

"Investors are generally ignoring a plethora of risks…” said Peter Cecchini, chief market strategist at Cantor Fitzgerald in New York. “One of the reasons they are willing to do that is foreign investors need a place to go and on a relative basis the United States is still sort of the best house in a bad global neighborhood."

Exercise bike maker Peloton (NASDAQ:PTON), which fell 11% on its market debut Thursday, continued to slide, dropping 5.9% to $24.23. That's now a total drop of 16%.

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC) gained 3.5% after it named Bank of New York Mellon (NYSE:BK) CEO Charles Scharf as its new chief executive, while Lyft (NASDAQ:LYFT) gained 1.6% on an analyst upgrade.

Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL) inched up 0.5% after it announced it was buying a 20% stake in LATAM Airlines for $1.9 billion in cash and debt. LATAM (NYSE:LTM) jumped 30.6%.

Elsewhere, Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) slumped 6.6% after it forecast a disappointing holiday season due to falling demand for its memory products. Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) lost 0.5%, while Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) inched down 0.1%.

In commodities, the U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, rose 0.1% to 98.833 and gold futures fell 1.2% to $1,496.75 a troy ounce. Crude oil futures lost 1.5% to $55.59 a barrel after the Wall Street Journal reported that Saudi Arabia was willing to agree to a partial ceasefire in neighboring Yemen, where its forces have been battling anti-government rebels since 2015.

-Reuters contributed to this report