Wall St. rises modestly; on track for seventh weekly gain

By Chuck Mikolajczak NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks edged greater on Friday within the absence of business knowledge and beforehand of a holiday-shortened week in the United States, a day after the Dow industrials closed above sixteen,000 for the primary time. The Dow's document high got here on Thursday as information on inflation and the labor market eased concerns that the Federal Reserve may be capable of start scaling back a stimulus application that has lifted the benchmark S&P 500 more than 26 % this year. Friday's modest strengthen places the Dow on track to close a seventh straight week of positive factors, its longest streak since an eight-week rally between December 2010 and January 2011. Fred Dickson, chief market strategist at D.A. Davidson & Co., in Lake Oswego, Oregon, stated that "the market has principally geared itself now, understanding the Fed can be discussing tapering.