Stocks inch to new records; S&P 500 posts 4th weekly rise

Stock indexes inched up to record highs Friday, barely, after a late-afternoon push erased losses from earlier in the day. That capped the fourth straight week of gains for the Standard & Poor's 500 index, its longest such streak since July. The other two major U.S. stock indexes also set new record highs Friday.

Reports this week showed that the nation’s economy is improving and corporate profits are growing more quickly than analysts expected. The encouraging data, along with hopes for lower taxes and other business-friendly policies from Washington, pushed the S&P 500 up 1.5% for the week, its best weekly performance since the first week of January.

Slightly more stocks fell than rose on the New York Stock Exchange.

The last two days have been lackluster for stocks in comparison to the strong run they had been on. That slowdown was more a result of investors looking to cash in some profits than on any fear or need to get out of the market, said JJ Kinahan, chief market strategist at TD Ameritrade.

“People don't want unnecessary risk heading into a three-day weekend,” he said. “This is more about taking off risk than about aggressive selling.”

U.S. markets will be closed Monday for Presidents Day.

Kinahan pointed to relative calm in the markets for the VIX index, which measures expectations for upcoming volatility in the S&P 500, and for gold, a traditional landing spot when investors are nervous.

Campbell Soup fell 6.5% to $58.48, the biggest drop in the S&P 500, after the company surprised analysts by reporting weaker revenue in its latest quarter than a year earlier. But its earnings beat Wall Street forecasts.

General Mills fell 3.8% to $59.23 after it warned of tougher times ahead. It said weaker-than-expected U.S. sales of yogurt and soup pushed it to cut its sales and profit forecast for its fiscal year, which ends in May.

TrueCar jumped 8.5% to $14.38 after the Santa Monica provider of localized information on car prices reported results that beat analysts' forecasts and issued strong full-year guidance.

Arista Networks leaped 18.9% to $119.06 after the Santa Clara, Calif., cloud networking company reported earnings well above what analysts expected.

Treasury yields gave back some of the gains they made earlier in the week. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.42% from Thursday’s 2.45%. The two-year yield slipped to 1.19% from 1.21%, and the 30year Treasury yield sank to 3.02% from 3.05%.

The dollar fell to 112.93 yen from 113.11 yen. The euro fell to $1.0607 from $1.0677, and the British pound fell to $1.2416 from $1.2497.

Benchmark U.S. crude oil rose 4 cents to $53.40 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, fell 16 cents to $55.81 a barrel. Natural gas slid 2 cents to $2.83 per 1,000 cubic feet, wholesale gasoline dropped nearly 1 cent to $1.52 a gallon and heating oil rose a fraction of a penny to $1.64 a gallon.

Gold dropped $2.50 to $1,239.10 an ounce, silver fell 4 cents to $18.03 an ounce and copper slid 1 cent to $2.71 a pound.