NEW YORK — Stocks closed higher Friday, with the three benchmark indexes scoring gains for the week, as European leaders agreed to closer fiscal ties and U.S. consumer confidence hit a six-month high.
“It’s an important step towards being able to right their fiscal house, and for the euro to remain the single currency,” Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott, said of the accord reached at the European Union summit.
“But it doesn’t cure the immediate issue of low, or in some countries negative, growth,” he added of the eurozone.
Logging a second consecutive week of gains, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 186.56 points, or 1.6 percent, to finish at 12,184.26, for a 1.4 percent gain on the week. Caterpillar and General Electric paced the gains that extended to all but one of the Dow’s 30 components. DuPont dropped 3.3 percent after the chemical maker and Dow component lowered its outlook.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 added 20.84 points, or 1.7 percent, to 1,255.19. The index finished the week 0.9 percent higher. The Nasdaq composite advanced 50.47 points, or 1.9 percent, to 2,646.85, ending the week up 0.8 percent.
Equities and U.S. Treasury yields gained after 26 European nations said they’ll consider linking their economies more closely. And the 17 nations that use the euro said they would sign an accord that would give a central authority better oversight of their budgets. Nine other European Union countries agreed to consider signing the treaty, but Britain said it would not.
“Europe is inching closer to what it will eventually have to do,” said David Kelly, chief market strategist at JPMorgan Funds. “It shows a determination that when push comes to shove, they will take whatever actions are necessary to calm the markets, but I’m not very impressed.”
The major indexes also drew a lift after the University of Michigan/Thomson Reuters index of consumer sentiment reached 67.7 in the initial reading for December, its highest level since June.
