NEW YORK — After a day of upheaval, U.S. stocks Friday closed the week with modest weekly gains across the major indexes, with investors heartened by positive economic data that included healthy retail sales in September and in-line results from industrial bellwether General Electric Co.
“Economic news was good and retail sales are quite encouraging. However, there are inflationary pressures in the economy,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Avalon Partners.
“Corporate news was in line with expectations,” Cardillo said.
The Dow Jones industrial average added 78 points to finish at 14,093.1, giving the blue-chip index a 0.2 percent weekly gain.
Of the Dow’s 30 components, 19 traded higher, led by General Motors Corp., up 6.6 percent.
GE fronted the Dow’s declines, with its stock off 1.4 percent.
The S&P 500 Index rose 7.39 points to 1,561.80, with the S&P scoring a weekly climb of 0.5 percent.
The Nasdaq Composite Index gained 33.48 points to 2,805.68, a daily gain of nearly 1.2 percent and a weekly climb of 0.9 percent.
On the New York Stock Exchange, volume topped 1 billion shares, with advancing stocks ahead of declining issues 5 to 3. On the Nasdaq, nearly 2 billion shares were exchanged, and advancing shares topped decliners 9 to 5.
The Labor Department said that U.S. producer prices rose a more-than-anticipated 1.1 percent in September, but core inflation increased a tame 0.1 percent.
“The headline data are a little stronger than expected and continue to show little impact on spending from the financial market turmoil,” said analysts at Action Economics.
The Commerce Department reported U.S. retail sales were stronger than expected in September, climbing 0.6 percent.
In a later report, the Commerce Department said U.S. businesses built up their inventories in August from lean levels, with retail inventories climbing 0.5 percent.
Other data included a fall in consumer sentiment in October, with a monthly survey released by Reuters and the University of Michigan dropping to 82 from 83.4 in September. The lapse was greater than the 84.5 forecast by analysts.
News from the corporate front included General Electric reporting better-than-expected earnings for the third quarter, saying that it would hit Wall Street’s targets for the coming period.
Shares of Citigroup Inc. were down 0.9 percent, a day after the bank announced a shake-up.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, crude-oil futures climbed higher on continued support from the first decline in U.S. crude supplies in three weeks. Crude for November delivery closed at a record high of $83.69, up 61 cents.
