Energy firms trade higher

NEW YORK » Oil prices and energy companies rallied Friday after OPEC said it will produce more oil, but not as much as investors feared. While trade tensions remained in the headlines, U.S. stocks finished slightly higher at the end of a bumpy week.

U.S. crude futures jumped 4.6 percent after OPEC nations agreed to produce about 1 million additional barrels of oil per day. Reports have said for weeks that production was likely to rise, but analysts said investors appear to think the boost will be smaller than OPEC says it will. So oil prices rallied even though they usually go down when production rises.

“People were pricing crude in the last couple of weeks (expecting) a bigger increase by OPEC than what they agreed to,” said Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist for the Leuthold Group.

The European Union followed through on its promise to put import taxes on $3.4 billion in U.S. goods including bourbon, peanut butter and orange juice in response to U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum. Automakers were jolted after President Donald Trump threatened to put a 20 percent tax on cars imported from Europe, although none of them took big losses.

The S&P 500 index rose as much as 14 points but ended with a gain of just 5.12 points, or 0.2 percent, to 2,754.88. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 119.19 points, or 0.5 percent, to 24,580.89 to break an eight-day losing streak. The Dow lost 2 percent this week, with Boeing off 5.3 percent and Caterpillar down 6.7 percent.