Stocks Closed Slightly Higher on Oil Boost

U.S. stocks closed slightly higher on Friday, led by energy companies as the price of crude oil turned sharply higher. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 35.00 points, or 0.20%, at 17,576.96. The S&P 500 gained 5.69 points, or 0.28%, to 2,047.60. The Nasdaq Composite added 2.32 points, or 0.05%, to 4,850.69.

Oil futures ended sharply higher Friday, boosted by expectations U.S. production will continue to decline. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, West Texas Intermediate crude futures for delivery in May jumped $2.46, or 6.6%, to end at 39.72 a barrel. June Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange rose $2.51, or 6.4%, to close at $41.94 a barrel.

French media group Vivendi (VIV.PA) agreed on Friday to buy the pay-TV operation of Italian broadcaster Mediaset (MS.MI), completing a major step in billionaire businessman Vincent Bollore’s plan to build a southern European content and video-on-demand powerhouse.

Netflix is about to hike the price of its most popular plan by 25% for all streaming customers, to $9.99 per month for the two-stream HD service.