US stocks climbed on Friday, with the Dow hitting an end of the day high for 2009, as investors anticipated positive news from this week's company earnings and bullish broker comments boosted technology shares. Overall US shares achieved their best weekly gains last week since July.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 78 points to 9,865. The S&P500 Index rose 6 points to 1,071 and the NASDAQ added 15 points to 2,139.
In economic news: The Commerce Department said the US trade deficit declined 3.5% to $US30.7 billion in August, as trade in services pushed exports slightly higher and imports fell by a fractionally larger amount.
Job openings in the US fell by 21,000 to 2.39 million in August, signaling the economy hasn’t improved enough to prompt companies to take on more staff.
In company news: International Business Machines (NYSE:IBM) shares rose 2.98% to $125.93, and led the Dow higher after Barclays Capital raised its price target on the stock to $140 from $119, and upgraded the information technology hardware sector to "positive" from "neutral."
Two large merger deals attracted investor interest and that included Kimberly-Clark (NYSE:KMB). Its shares rose 0.34% to $59.26, after the company said it plans to acquire I-Flow Corp for $324 million.
Citigroup (NYSE:C) shares fell 0.43% to $4.63, after agreeing to sell its Phibro commodities trading business to Occidental Petroleum.
Chevron (NYSE:CVX) shares gained 1.83% to $72.76, after the company said that higher oil prices would lead to significantly better profits from exploration and production in the third quarter than the previous one.
Checking the NASDAQ Top 100: The best performer was Marvell Technology Group adding 4.83% to $15.62. NetApp and Lam Research were the next best performers. Yahoo lost the most ground, falling 4.04% to $16.87. Ross Stores and Infosys Technologies also closed lower.
