US stocks edge higher on Friday

Nine of ten sectors end the day in the green led by energy sector

U.S. stocks edged higher on Friday, 19 December 2014 as the market came off a massive two-day rally. The market closed out its second-best week of the year on Friday. Despite the sharp midweek surge, buying interest remained in place on Friday with nine of ten sectors ending the day in the green.

The Dow Jones Industrial average rose 26 points, or 0.2% to close at 17,804. The Nasdaq composite added 17 points, or 0.4% to 4,765. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 9 points, or 0.5%, to 2,070. It rose 3.4% for the week.

The energy sector finished in the lead and extended its weekly gain to 9.7%, which put the growth-sensitive group well ahead of the remaining sectors. Chevron and Exxon Mobil advanced the most over the past week, gaining 10% and 8.1% respectively.

Asian and European stock markets posted sharp gains on Friday, following Wall Street's lead from Thursday. The world stock markets' euphoria is stemming from dovishly construed FOMC meeting results on Wednesday. There are also ideas the European Central Bank will soon announce further monetary policy stimulus measures, which helped to boost the European equities. An upbeat German consumer sentiment report Friday also helped the European stock market bulls.

The Bank of Japan on Friday left its monetary policy unchanged at its regular meeting, which was expected. The BOJ also said plunging oil prices will not negatively impact the BOJ's efforts to fend off deflationary price pressures in the moribund Japan economy.

The broader technology sector, the top-weighted group was kept behind the broader market by relative weakness in influential components like Apple, Intel and Visa.

Shares of Nike closed down 2.3% after the athletic-gear maker's results beat forecasts, but orders were viewed as soft.

Bullion prices ended moderately higher at Comex on Friday, 19 December 2014 at Comex. Gold prices were steady to modestly higher in U.S. trading on Friday, on mild bargain hunting and some safe-haven demand heading into the weekend. Also, gold was still seeing some buying interest in the wake of Wednesday's FOMC meeting that was being deemed a bit dovish. However, a firmer U.S. dollar index and big gains in world stock markets limited the upside in gold and silver.

Gold for February delivery inched higher by $1.20, or 0.1%, to settle at $1,196.00 an ounce. Gold still suffered a 2.2% drop for the week, staying under the closely-watched level of $1,200. March silver gained 10 cents, or 0.6%, to end at $16.03 an ounce.

Treasuries climbed throughout the day and ended just below their highs. The benchmark 10-yr yield slipped four basis points to 2.17%.

Participation was well ahead of average, which was caused by quadruple witching. As a result more than 2.1 billion shares changed hands at the NYSE floor.

Investors did not receive any economic news today and Monday's data will be limited to the Existing Home Sales report (consensus 5.20 million), which will be released at 10:00 ET.

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