Investing.com – Wall Street traded higher with markets waiting to see what type of message Donald Trump could send in his inaugural speech later on Friday.
At 11:00AM ET (16:00GMT), the Dow Jones climbed 95 points, or 0.48%, the S&P 500 gained 11 points, or 0.48%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 19 points, or 0.55%.
Ten weeks after shocking the world by winning the U.S. election, Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 45th President of the United States at approximately 12:00PM ET (17:00GMT) on Friday in Washington, D.C.
Though equities initially rallied after the surprise result on hopes that Trump would embark on implementing fiscal policies to spur growth and cut taxes, stocks have recently been cautious with the Dow itself ending down in the prior five sessions.
Trump failed to offer details on his promises to boost fiscal spending and cut taxes at a highly-anticipated news conference last week.
In that light, investors will welcome any detail he may give in his inaugural speech about his plans for tax reform, infrastructure spending and deregulation, as well as insight regarding policies on China and the domestic economy.
On a day lacking in any major economic reports stateside, investors evaluated several earnings reports from Dow Jones components.
Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG) posted gains of more than 3% after the firm beat on both the top and bottom line and raised its fiscal year forecast for organic sales growth.
Even though IBM (NYSE:IBM) reported its 19th straight quarter of declining revenue, investors appeared to take heart in the positive outlook for its newer segments that allowed it to forecast full-year earnings that beat the Street. Shares were last up 1.8%.
On the downside, General Electric (NYSE:GE) led the decliners on the Dow with losses of 2% as the blue-chip conglomerate produced mixed results and traders appeared to focus on the bigger-than-expected 2.4% decline in revenue.
Shares of American Express (NYSE:AXP) were down 0.5% after reporting a lower-than-expected quarterly profit as the credit card issuer boosted spending on marketing and promotion to fend off rising competition.
Meanwhile, oil jumped nearly 3% on Friday, though investors will keep an eye on data from Baker Hughes out later on Friday to take stock of how U.S. shale drillers are responding to higher prices.
According to last week’s most recent data from the oilfield services provider, the number of rigs drilling for oil in the U.S. decreased by 7 to 522. That was the first decline in the oil-rig count in 10 weeks.
This weekend market participants will also be looking for any clues on the landmark agreement among major oil producers to cut production by nearly 1.8 million barrels per day.
A monitoring committee charged with tracking adherence to the global deal is due to meet in Vienna for the first time on January 22.
U.S. crude futures jumped 2.61% to $53.48 by 11:01AM ET (17:01GMT), while Brent oil soared 2.68% to $55.61