US Stocks Rise To 2 1/2 Year Intraday Highs




U.S. stocks rose Friday, setting fresh 2 1/2-year intraday highs as the market continued its uptrend despite another round of tightening in China and continued unrest in the Middle East.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 53 points, or 0.4%, to 12370, and reached its highest intraday level since June 2008 at 12370.67. Among the measure's top performers, Travelers rose 1.6%, Cisco Systems added 1.5% and Caterpillar gained 1.5%. Limiting the advance, Pfizer fell 1%, Disney slipped 0.8% and American Express shed 0.7%.

The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.3% to 2840. The Standard & Poor's 500 index added 0.3% to 1344, led by the energy sector as crude-oil futures climbed.

"It looks like a continuation of an upward drift in the market," said Phil Dow, director Of equity strategy at RBC Wealth Management. "You've had a pretty good dose of negative news and yet the market just keeps going up," he said, noting that the market's gains have come in the face of turmoil in Egypt and the Middle East.

Friday marks the final session of the U.S. stock market's third-straight week in the black, which is also the DJIA's 11th positive week out of the past 12 weeks.

Still, RBC's Dow said, the upcoming three-day weekend is likely keeping a lid on Friday's climb, especially with a Group of 20 meeting going on in Paris and while the unrest in the Middle East continues.

"A three-day weekend always cautions traders," Dow said. "One less day of liquidity scares people."

At the G-20 meeting, the group of industrial and developing nations appeared headed toward an agreement on setting four indicators as guidelines for measuring global economic imbalances, according to senior G-20 officials.

Also at the meeting, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke offered his most pointed rebuttal yet to foreign critics who say the U.S. central bank's easy-money policies are causing inflation and asset bubbles abroad. The rest of the world has an interest in the U.S. recovery that his policies are spurring, Bernanke argued in prepared remarks.

In the Middle East, Bahraini protesters said security services opened fire on demonstrators Friday evening as they marched toward the capital's Pearl roundabout, dramatically escalating the standoff between the country's Sunni Muslim rulers and its Shiite majority population. The country's crown prince, in an emotional TV appearance, appealed for calm and asked protesters to leave the square to begin "dialogue."

The unrest helped lift crude-oil futures above $90 a barrel.

The materials sector, which gets much of its demand from China, fell as China's central bank said it will raise banks' reserve-requirement ratio by half a percentage point, the second increase this year to withdraw excess liquidity from the economy and curb inflation.

But the broader market largely shrugged off the move, given that it was widely expected as the People's Bank of China hasn't been able to withdraw sufficient funds from the market in its open-market operations, and because consumer-price inflation accelerated in January.

The U.S. Dollar Index, tracking the U.S. currency against a basket of six others, slipped 0.4%. Treasurys declined, lifting the yield on the 10-year note up to 3.62%. Gold futures climbed.

Among stocks in focus, Campbell Soup fell 4.9%, after the company cut its earnings outlook for its current fiscal year amid heated competition for soups, sauces and drinks. The lowered guidance comes after Campbell reported a 7.7% decline in fiscal second-quarter earnings as more promotions again failed to boost soup sales. Revenue missed analysts' expectations.

Red Robin Gourmet Burgers jumped 13%. The casual restaurant chain's fourth-quarter earnings rose 37% to beat its downbeat forecast as higher traffic boosted revenue. Chief Executive Steven Carley said the company is implementing "significant initiatives" to increase same-store sales, reduce expenses, improve restaurant level margins and drive overall corporate profitability.