NEW YORK — U. S. stocks rose but closed below their session highs on renewed concerns about Donald Trump’s presidency, after
two new reports related to a federal investigation into possible coordination between Russia and Trump’s election campaign.
Some market participants said that for much of the session, they turned their focus
to strong quarterly earnings from companies such as Autodesk Inc and Deere & Co.
Software developer Autodesk jumped 14.7 percent and was the biggest percentage
gainer on the S&P after reporting better-than-expected quarterly revenue.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 141.82 points, or 0.69 percent, to 20,804.84, the S&P 500 had gained 16.01 points, or 0.68 percent, to 2,381.73
and the Nasdaq Composite had added 28.57 points, or 0.47 percent, to 6,083.70.
But all three indexes clocked losses for the week with the Dow and S&P falling 0.4 percent and Nasdaq off 0.6 percent
Position of the Dow Jones industrial average at 1-minute intervals on Friday.
Paul Nolte said that I’m sure some of (the move) is related to that, and the fact
that Trump is going to be out of the country and nobody’s quite sure what he’s going to do,
Separately the New York Times reported that Trump told Russian officials at the White House
that firing FBI Director James Comey relieved "great pressure" from the ongoing probe.