Wall Street ends week on uptick

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Major indexes staged a late rally to finish higher Friday, capping a rather volatile session where investors closely eyed corporate earnings and attempted to gauge the Federal Reserve's next step.

The Dow Jones industrial average (Charts) finished 67 points, or 0.5 percent, higher, based on early tallies.

The broader S&P 500 index (Charts) also gained 0.5 percent while the tech-fueled Nasdaq (Charts) rose 0.7 percent.

Treasury prices were little changed, leaving the yield on the benchmark 10-year note at 4.16 percent.

The dollar eased versus the euro, but was narrowly higher against the yen.

In commodity trading, oil prices fell Friday as light, sweet crude for December lost 25 cents to settle at $94.85 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Gold prices move higher as COMEX gold for December lost 30 cents to $787 an ounce.

Here's what was moving before the bell:

Stocks had seesawed for most of the session as Wall Street sifted through a mix of earnings news and comments from a Federal Reserve official.

Major indexes retreated after Federal Reserve Gov. Randall Kroszner hinted that the central bank may not continue to lower interest rates, even if the economy worsens.

Also in focus was news from package delivery firm FedEx (Charts, Fortune 500), which cut its earnings outlook Friday, citing higher fuel costs and a strained U.S. freight market. FedEx shares eased about 5 percent on the New York Stock Exchange.

A day earlier, stocks tumbled on concerns about the health of the U.S. consumer and as more banks, including UBS (Charts) and a unit of Barclays Group (Charts), took more writedowns on risky mortgage debt.

In other corporate news, Starbucks reported strong quarterly results late Thursday, but the coffee retailer trimmed its fiscal 2008 guidance and reported a decline in traffic at its U.S. stores. Starbucks (Charts, Fortune 500) shares fell 4 percent in Nasdaq trading on the news.

Shares of Fannie Mae (Charts) fell over 4 percent after execs of the government-sponsored mortgage lender defended their loan loss disclosure practices.

The network equipment company Cisco Systems (Charts, Fortune 500), which said it would expand its share buyback program by $10 billion.

Department store operator Kohl's (Charts, Fortune 500) reported a drop in earnings late Thursday and also cut its earnings outlook.

On the economic front, industrial production suffered its biggest decline in nine months during the month of October, the Federal Reserve said Friday. The reading came in worse than expected.

Market breadth was negative. Decliners beat advancers by nearly 3 to 2 on the New York Stock Exchange on volume of 1.49 billion shares. Losers topped winners by nearly the same ratio as 2.24 billion shares exchanged hands.