Stocks eked out a gain Friday after struggling all day as investors weighed a better-than-expected reading on consumer sentiment against a disappointing retail-sales report.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 38.54, or 0.4 percent, to close at 10,211.07.
That helped the Dow snap a three-week losing streak, with the blue-chip index finishing up 2.8 percent for the week. It also pulled the Dow out of correction mode. The S&P 500and Nasdaq, however, remained in correction territory, down more than 10 percent from their April high.
Techs were the big winners today, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq finishing up more than 1 percent. For the week, though, techs were the biggest decliners. Materials, energy and telecoms were the biggest gainers.
The CBOE volatility index, widely considered the best gauge of fear in the market, was around 28.60 at the closing bell.
Investors toggled between the risk trade and playing it safe this week but Marc Pado, U.S. strategist at Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. said investors should add to risk positions over the next few weeks ahead of the earnings season. "Small, domestic technology stocks will be strong and I think that retail has a good chance for a solid bounce," said.
One big boost for the market: A gauge of consumer sentiment jumped to 75.5in a mid-June reading, the highest since January 2008, according to the latest University of Michigan and Reuters survey. That's up from 73.6 at the end of May and better than the 74.5 expected.
Earlier, a government report showed retail sales fell 1.2 percent in May despite projections that they would increase 0.2 percent. It was the largest decline in eight months as consumers slashed spending on everything from cars to clothing. Building materials saw one of the biggest declines, falling 9.3 percent.
However, the decline was "very narrowly concentrated" and the report was "much more positive" than the headline figures suggest, Nomura economists wrote in a research note to clients.
"Overall recent retail sales reports show a cooling in consumer spending growth from Q1 but not outright retrenchment."
And business inventories rose 0.4 percent in April; economists had expected a 0.5-percent gain.
Oil settled at $73.78 a barrel, up over 3 percent for the week.
BP gained 3.6 percent, adding to their 12-percent gain from the prior session. The company denied an earlier report from the UK times saying the firm is planning to defer their dividend payouts to investors. There's a rising backlash from the UKover the US's tough talk with the company which has slashed the company's market cap in half. An estimated 10 percent of pensions in the UK include the oil giant's stock.
