NEW YORK — U.S. stocks climbed to fresh multi-year highs Friday, extending their winning streak to a third straight week, as the market’s upward momentum helped outweigh another round of tightening in China and continued unrest in the Middle East.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 73.11 points, or 0.59 percent, to 12,391.25, its highest close since June 5, 2008. The measure rose 0.96 percent last week, and has gained 4.8 percent over the past three weeks, marking its best three-week performance since August.
The Nasdaq composite climbed 2.37, or 0.08 percent, to 2,833.95, its highest close since Oct. 31, 2007. It is now down just 0.88 percent from its October 2007 multi-year high.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 added 2.58, or 0.19 percent, to 1,343.01, its highest close since June 17, 2008.
“This is a market that just has momentum, and it wants to go higher,” said Dan Genter, chief executive and chief investment officer of RNC Genter Capital Management.
The market’s advance Friday came even as China’s central bank said it will raise banks’ reserve- requirement ratio, the second increase this year to withdraw excess liquidity from the economy and curb inflation.
Investors said there are concerns that the Middle East presents risks the market isn’t accounting for. “Some of the geopolitical events we’re seeing in the Middle East do pose another risk,” said Rob McIver, co-portfolio manager of the Jensen Portfolio. “It’s interesting that that’s not having more of a negative effect on the bulls at the moment.”
The Group of 20 finance ministers are meeting in Paris, and turmoil continues in the Middle East. The group of industrial and developing nations appeared headed toward an agreement on setting indicators as guidelines for measuring global economic imbalances, according to senior G20 officials. The indicators would be current account imbalances, public-sector debt, private-sector debt and one indicator for the real effective foreign exchange rate and the size of foreign-exchange reserves.
