Stocks Closed Out Best Week of the Year

U.S. stocks ended slightly higher on Friday and logged their biggest weekly gains in months, helped by airlines and industrial companies. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 33.74 points, or 0.20%, to 17,084.49 and booked a 3.7% gain over the week. The S&P 500 was up 1.46 points, or 0.07%, to 2,014.89 and gained 3.3% over the week. The Nasdaq Composite rose 19.68 points, or 0.41%, to 4,830.47 and advanced 2.6% over the week.

Oil futures logged a 9% weekly gain on Friday, supported by weakness in the U.S. dollar, the conflict in Syria and the possibility of a collaboration among the major oil producers. November West Texas Intermediate crude rose 20 cents, or 0.4%, to settle at $49.63 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The House voted 261 to 159 on Friday to lift restrictions on crude-oil exports, capping a year of heavy lobbying by the American Petroleum Institute, many of the nation’s biggest petroleum companies and leading shale oil producers.

Dell Inc is offering $27.25 per share in cash for data storage company EMC Corp, Re/code reported on Friday. Shareholders will also get a specialized stock in cloud software company VMware Inc as part of the deal, Re/code reported.