Wall Street closes in green, Nasdaq and S&P 500 record biggest weekly gains in 7 years

• Trade optimism lifts stocks higher on Friday.
• Attention turns to G20 summit.
• Of the 11 major sectors, only energy closes the day in the red.

Following a flat start to the day, major equity indexes in the U.S. gained traction on Friday and recorded decisive gains as latest  headlines surrounding the meeting with President Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi heightened the hopes of a positive outcome and improved the market sentiment.

According to Reuters, a  Chinese official said that the consensus was  steadily increasing in trade despite differences remaining between the two countries. Earlier in the day, in a joint press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Abe, Trump told reporters that there were some good signs on trade. “We’ll see what happens,” Trump concluded. Commenting on Trump’s remarks, “The fundamental problem for investors and businesses have is they’re never quite sure what’s on Trump’s mind. It almost depends on who he’s riding the elevator with,”  Bernard Baumohl, managing director and chief global economist at the Economic Outlook Group in Princeton, told Reuters.

The risk-sensitive S&P 500 Technology Index added 1.06% on the day while the trade-related S&P 500 Industrials Index gained 1.04%. On a negative note, the barrel of West Texas Intermediate lost more than 1% on the day and the S&P 500 Energy Index closed 0.24% lower.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 199.62 points, or 0.79%, to 25,538.46, the S&P 500 added 22.23 points, or 0.81%, to 2,759.99 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 57.45 points, or 0.79%, to 7,330.54. For the week, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite posted their  largest percentage gains in seven years with 4.8% and 5.6%, respectively. Following today’s rally, all three indexes were able to close the month in the positive territory.