Wall Street ends week higher

Wall Street was up at midday on Friday and looked to be ready to end the week at its highest levels in three months. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was 0.7 percent higher on the day so far and 1.6 percent higher for the week to 11,465.51. The Nasdaq Composite had added 0.5 percent on the day and 2 percent on the week to 2,194.21, while the S&P 500 was 0.6 percent higher to mid-session and up 1.2 percent on the week to 1,310.94.

The semiconductors sector saw significant gains during the week. Intel added 5.3 percent to $19.90 on an upgrade from “market perform” to “outperform” from Friedman Billings Ramsey. Meanwhile, LSI Logic gained 8 percent to $0.86 and PMC Sierra was 9.8 percent higher to $6.73.

Retailers were also up. Discount retailer Family Dollar was up by 10.8 percent to $26.12 on higher than anticipated sales in August and an improved fourth-quarter guidance. Nordstrom had its best week in more than a year, adding 11.7 percent to $38.02.

Internet stocks did well. Ebay was 11.1 percent higher to $28.11 on an announcement of an advertising agreement with Google. Amazon gained 12.8 percent to $31.63.

Losers on the week included the oil and telecommunications equipment sectors. Ciena, which manufactures networking equipment, dropped 4.6 percent to $3.95, while JDS Uniphase was 11.2 percent lower to $2.29.

In the oil sector, Marathon Oil fell 8.5 percent to $84.26, while Sunoco dropped 6.4 percent to $72.39.

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