NEW YORK — Stocks finished the session higher Friday, helping cement solid gains for the week, as key corporate earnings from consumer names helped offset news that sentiment remained shaky among U.S. consumers.
The Dow Jones industrial average gained 73 points Friday, or 0.7 percent, to end at 10,270.47, finishing the week with a gain of 2.5 percent.
The blue-chip average still finished below a 13-month high it reached Wednesday.
Strong earnings at Walt Disney Co., an analyst upgrade of Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. and a retreat in oil prices helped the market shake off a weak reading of consumer sentiment. Traders said that many bears also had placed bets early that the sentiment data would be glum, clearing the way for buyers to rush back following the data’s actual release.
“We’ve been hearing for so long about the toll that weak employment and higher savings rates are having on consumer spending,” said Todd Salamone, director of trading at Schaeffer’s Investment Research in Cincinnati. “At this point, it might sting a little to see confirmation of that. But I think it’s hard to have a sustained reaction.”
The Nasdaq Composite Index gained 18.86 points, or 0.9 percent, to 2,167.88. For the week, it was up 2.6 percent.
The S&P 500 Index rose 6.24 points, or 0.6 percent, to 1,093.48. For the five-day period, it added 2.3 percent.
Disney shares got a lift after the entertainment giant’s better-than-expected quarterly report.
Goodyear was up more than 4 percent after Goldman Sachs analysts upgraded the tire-maker to a buy rating from neutral, saying that recent selling in the company’s shares was overdone following its weak fourth-quarter forecast.
The gains in Disney and Goodyear helped propel the S&P 500’s consumer-discretionary sector to a 1.6 percent gain — the strongest showing in a rally that spread across almost all the broad index’s categories, except financials.
The Reuters/University of Michigan index of consumer sentiment fell to 66 in November, down from 70.6 in October. Analysts had been hoping to see the measure rise as high as 72 in the latest report.
After a 204-point surge Monday, momentum and trading volume tailed off markedly during the week, with many traders becoming less apt to unload hoarded dollars in favor of more aggressive plays in stocks and commodities.
But the “risk trade” again was in favor Friday, with the dollar edging lower.
The government reported that the U.S. trade balance widened more than expected in September, with import prices rising faster than export prices. The trade deficit widened to $36.5 billion in September, compared with expectations for an expansion to $32 billion, according to economists polled by MarketWatch.
Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Avalon Partners, said the data were a mixed blessing for investors.
