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U.S. stocks traded mildly higher Friday as traders awaited comments from Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, ahead of the Memorial Day long weekend.
The Dow Jones Industrials crept up 18.25 points to begin what looks to be a quiet session at 17,846.54, Goldman Sachs having the greatest positive impact on the Dow.
The S&P 500 regained 4.84 points to 2,094.94, as financials and consumer discretionary led S&P 500 advancers.
The NASDAQ Composite added 15.18 points to 4,916.95, helped by gains in shares of Alphabet, Ulta Salon and Baidu. Apple traded about 0.5% lower
As of morning trade Friday, the Dow and S&P were within 2% of their 52-week intraday highs. The NASDAQ was about 6% below its 52-week intraday high. All three major indexes were tracking for weekly gains of 2% or more.
Yellen is set to speak with Harvard professor Gregory Mankiw at 1:15 p.m. ET as she receives the university's Radcliffe Medal. Former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke is also scheduled to deliver remarks.
Economically speaking, the second revision to U.S. first-quarter GDP came in at 0.8%, a touch below expectations although up from the advance read.
Consumer sentiment was 94.7.
Prices for the 10-year Treasury lost ground, raising yields to 1.84% from Thursday’s 1.83%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices subsided 64 cents a barrel to $48.84 U.S.
Gold prices were off $3.83 to $1,215.97 U.S. an ounce.
