U.S. shares higher at close of trade; Dow Jones Industrial Average up 1.21%

Investing.com – U.S. equities were higher at the close on Friday, as gains in the Oil & Gas , Basic Materials and Financials sectors propelled shares higher.

At the close in NYSE, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 1.21% to hit a new 6-month high, while the S&P 500 index gained 1.20%, and the NASDAQ Composite index added 0.88%.

The biggest gainers of the session on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were Cisco Systems Inc (NASDAQ: CSCO ), which rose 7.00% or 2.71 points to trade at 41.38 at the close. Boeing Co (NYSE: BA ) added 4.93% or 8.71 points to end at 185.43 and Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (NASDAQ: WBA ) was up 4.06% or 1.66 points to 42.42 in late trade.

Biggest losers included McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE: MCD ), which lost 0.31% or 0.67 points to trade at 212.40 in late trade. Salesforce.com Inc (NYSE: CRM ) declined 0.18% or 0.44 points to end at 248.98 and Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL ) shed 0.08% or 0.09 points to 119.12.

The top performers on the S&P 500 were Nordstrom Inc (NYSE: JWN ) which rose 10.01% to 17.26, Host Hotels & Resorts Inc (NYSE: HST ) which was up 8.52% to settle at 13.25 and MGM Resorts International (NYSE: MGM ) which gained 8.23% to close at 25.64.

The worst performers were Cincinnati Financial Corporation (NASDAQ: CINF ) which was down 5.34% to 78.56 in late trade, MarketAxess Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: MKTX ) which lost 2.25% to settle at 522.77 and NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA ) which was down 1.60% to 529.64 at the close.

The top performers on the NASDAQ Composite were Urovant Sciences (NASDAQ: UROV ) which rose 93.48% to 16.02, Asia Pacific Wire & Cable Corp Ltd (NASDAQ: APWC ) which was up 53.03% to settle at 2.020 and National Holdings (NASDAQ: NHLD ) which gained 45.94% to close at 2.720.

The worst performers were Shift Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: SFT ) which was down 26.64% to 7.25 in late trade, Allied Healthcare Products Inc (NASDAQ: AHPI ) which lost 24.94% to settle at 5.900 and TOMI Environmental Solutions Inc (NASDAQ: TOMZ ) which was down 25.41% to 4.9600 at the close.

Advancing stocks outnumbered falling ones by 2380 to 515 and 62 ended unchanged; on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange, 2065 rose and 723 declined, while 56 ended unchanged on the New York Stock Exchange.

The CBOE Volatility Index , which measures the implied volatility of S&P 500 options, was down 9.27% to 23.00 a new 1-month low.

In commodities trading, Gold Futures for December delivery was up 0.67% or 12.50 to $1885.80 a troy ounce. Meanwhile, Crude oil for delivery in December fell 2.16% or 0.89 to hit $40.23 a barrel, while the January Brent oil contract fell 1.68% or 0.73 to trade at $42.80 a barrel.

EUR/USD was up 0.25% to 1.1834, while USD/JPY fell 0.49% to 104.61.

The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.24% at 92.735.