Stocks Ended Tough Week on Bright Note

U.S. stocks ended a losing week on a more optimistic note on Friday, boosted by rising energy and basic materials shares. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 34.59 points, or 0.27%, to 13,080.73. It lost 1.2% for the weekr. The S&P 500 rose 4.33 points, or 0.31%, to 1,397.11. It lost 0.5% for the week. The Nasdaq Composite rose 4.60 points, or 0.15%, to 3,067.92, up 0.4% for the week.

The pace of new-home sales cooled a bit in February even as prices stormed higher, according to data released Friday by the Commerce Department, suggesting that a modest but noticeable improvement in the housing market is holding. Sales of new homes fell 1.6% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 313,000 from a downwardly revised 318,000 in January.

BATS Global Markets, a stock exchange that had just gone public, has taken the highly unusual step of withdrawing its initial public offering following a trading setback in the company’s stock and in the shares of some of the companies that trade on its platform.

 Crude futures closed higher Friday, buoyed by concerns about global supplies following a report of a drop in Iranian oil exports, as traders digested the week’s economic data, searching for hints on the prospects for demand. Oil for May delivery rose $1.52, or 1.4%, tosettle at $106.87 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.