U.S. stocks higher at close of trade; Dow Jones Industrial Average up 1.91% By Investing.com

Investing.com – U.S. stocks were higher after the close on Friday, as gains in the , and sectors led shares higher.

At the close in NYSE, the rose 1.91%, while the index gained 1.69%, and the index climbed 1.58%.

The best performers of the session on the were Dow Inc (NYSE:), which rose 4.51% or 1.48 points to trade at 34.33 at the close. Meanwhile, Caterpillar Inc (NYSE:) added 4.49% or 4.82 points to end at 112.11 and Exxon Mobil Corp (NYSE:) was up 4.39% or 1.94 points to 46.18 in late trade.

The worst performers of the session were McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE:), which rose 0.06% or 0.11 points to trade at 181.23 at the close. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:) added 0.59% or 1.08 points to end at 184.68 and UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (NYSE:) was up 0.70% or 2.00 points to 287.00.

The top performers on the S&P 500 were Helmerich and Payne Inc (NYSE:) which rose 13.51% to 17.73, Noble Energy Inc (NASDAQ:) which was up 13.46% to settle at 10.03 and News Corp B (NASDAQ:) which gained 13.29% to close at 11.25.

The worst performers were TripAdvisor Inc (NASDAQ:) which was down 4.33% to 17.91 in late trade, Motorola Solutions Inc (NYSE:) which lost 3.63% to settle at 131.27 and Fleetcor Technologies Inc (NYSE:) which was down 3.51% to 240.00 at the close.

The top performers on the NASDAQ Composite were Fuel Tech Inc (NASDAQ:) which rose 93.78% to 0.9100, Protagonist Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:) which was up 83.70% to settle at 14.20 and Everspin Technologies Inc (NASDAQ:) which gained 51.88% to close at 4.86.

The worst performers were Genius Brands International Inc (NASDAQ:) which was down 30.51% to 0.5800 in late trade, China Advanced Construction Materials Group Inc (NASDAQ:) which lost 20.31% to settle at 0.510 and Shotspotter Inc (NASDAQ:) which was down 19.40% to 23.48 at the close.

Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the New York Stock Exchange by 2408 to 482 and 49 ended unchanged; on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange, 2068 rose and 580 declined, while 61 ended unchanged.

The , which measures the implied volatility of S&P 500 options, was down 11.01% to 27.98 a new 1-month low.

Gold Futures for June delivery was down 1.22% or 21.00 to $1704.80 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in June rose 4.54% or 1.07 to hit $24.62 a barrel, while the July Brent oil contract rose 4.82% or 1.42 to trade at $30.88 a barrel.

EUR/USD was up 0.06% to 1.0839, while USD/JPY rose 0.38% to 106.67.

The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.13% at 99.773.