U.S. stocks rebounded strongly Friday as investor sentiment was buoyed by spiking oil prices.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average leapt 313.66 points, or 2.00 percent, to 15,973.84. The S&P 500 jumped 35.70 points, or 1.95 percent, to 1,864.78. The Nasdaq Composite Index gained 70.68 points, or 1.66 percent, to 4,337.51.
Oil prices spiked Friday, with the U.S. oil soaring over 12 percent, boosted by the possibility that major production countries may cooperate to curb production. The Energy Minister of the United Arab Emirates Suhail Al-Mazrouei reportedly said the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries was ready to cooperate on production cuts with other exporters.
Meanwhile, U.S. energy firms cut oil rigs for the eighth straight week, according to the data from oil service company Baker Hughes Friday. Analysts expected major U.S. shale oil companies to slash spending after crude prices plunged.
The West Texas Intermediate for March delivery moved up 3.23 U. S. dollars to settle at 29.44 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent crude for April delivery increased 3.3 dollars to close at 33.36 dollars a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange. Persistent oversupply, bloated inventories and a slew of negative economic news dragged crude prices to 12-year lows Thursday.
On the economic front, the U.S. Commerce Department announced Friday that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for January came in at 449.9 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 0.2 percent from the previous month and on par with market consensus. U.S. import price index came out better than expected.
In January, prices for U.S. imports decreased 1.1 percent for the second consecutive month, beating market estimates of a 1. 4-percent decline, the Labor Department reported Friday. "As far as market jitters are concerned, both reports this morning served to quell fears of a broad based slowdown in the economy," said Jay Morelock, an economist at FTN Financial, in a note.
Despite Friday's solid gains, all three major indices still posted weekly losses, with the Dow, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq going down 1.4 percent, 0.8 percent and 0.6 percent respectively.
The CBOE Volatility Index, often referred to as Wall Street's fear gauge, fell 9.74 percent to end at 25.40 Friday. In other markets, the U.S. dollar traded mixed against other major currencies and rose against the Japanese yen for the first this week on Friday as the economic data came out positive from the country.
In late New York trading, the euro declined to 1.1256 dollars from 1.1338 dollars in the previous session, while the dollar bought 113.24 Japanese yen, higher than 112.21 yen of the previous session.
Gold futures on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange fell Friday as traders took profits after a week of much stronger gold prices due to economic instability. The most active gold contract for April delivery lost 8.4 dollars, or 0.67 percent, to settle at 1,239.40 dollars per ounce.
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