Investing.com - Wall Street rose on Friday with the S&P 500 set to post its best quarterly gain since September 2009.
The Dow gained 117 points, or 0.5%, by 9:40 AM ET (13:40 GMT), while the S&P 500 rose 11 points, or 0.4%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite was up 42 points, or 0.6%.
"It has been a surprisingly strong quarter. People are feeling much better than they were in the beginning of the first quarter and that's a positive sign, but there are still some concerns like trade, and the inverted yield curve," said Robert Pavlik, chief investment strategist and senior portfolio manager at SlateStone Wealth.
Meanwhile, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that trade negotiations with China were off to a good start and officials had a “productive working dinner” in Beijing. Still, Larry Kudlow, the top economic advisor to President Donald Trump, warned that it could still take months to seal a deal that would end the two countries' trade war.
Banking stocks were up, with Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) rising 0.5% after news that CEO Tim Sloan is stepping down. JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) rose 1.2%, while Citigroup (NYSE:C) gained 1%. American Express (NYSE:AXP) was up 1% and Celgene (NASDAQ:CELG) jumped 6%.
Elsewhere, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) slumped 1.1% after a price cut from J.P. Morgan, while Verizon (NYSE:VZ) lost 0.5% and DowDuPont (NYSE:DWDP) slipped 2%.
In commodities, gold futures rose 0.5% to $1,302.35 a troy ounce, while crude oil jumped 1.6% to $60.27 a barrel. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, lost 0.1% to 96.688.
-- Reuters contributed to this report.