Stocks Opened Higher to Kick off March Trading

U.S. stocks opened solidly higher on Friday, with hope of a final U.S.-China trade pact partly behind the strong start for March. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lately gained 211.61 points, or 0.82%, to 26,127.61. The S&P 500 gained 22.58 points, or 0.81%, to 2,807.07. The Nasdaq Composite advanced 53.46 points, or 0.71%, to 7,585.99.

Oil futures prices hovered near a three-month peak on Friday, amid signs that OPEC is adhering to its pledge to limit production. April West Texas Intermediate crude rose 14 cents, or 0.2%, to $57.37 a barrel. May Brent was up 7 cents, or 0.1%, to $66.37 a barrel.

U.S. officials are preparing a final trade deal that President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping could sign in weeks, people familiar with the matter said, even as a debate continues in Washington over whether to push Beijing for more concessions.

Dell Technologies Inc topped Street estimates for quarterly revenue on Thursday and also forecast annual revenue above estimates. Revenue in its Infrastructure Solutions Group rose 10 percent to $9.9 billion. Servers and networking revenue rose 14 percent to $5.3 billion. Excluding some items, Dell expects full-year 2020 revenue between $93 billion and $96 billion.

EBay Inc on Friday announced a review of its StubHub and eBay Classifieds businesses and said it would appoint a director from Elliott Management to its board, as part of an agreement with the activist investor to avert a proxy contest.