Winning resumes on quadruple witching Friday, leaving stocks higher for the week. The Dow ($INDU) added 36.28 points to a level of 9,820.20. The S&P 500 ($SPX) rose 2.81 points to 1,068.03. The Nasdaq ($COMPQ) tacked on 6.11 points to 2,132.86. Volume was extremely heavy on the session with the NYSE trading 2.27 billion shares and the Naz turning over 3.07 billion shares. Market breadth was positive on the session by a 18-to-13 and 14-to-13 margin on the Big Board and Naz respectively.

The major market indices continue to advance, showing strong gains for the year and another weekly gain. The Dow added 2.24 percent this past week, with the SPX rising 2.45 percent and the Naz up 2.50 percent. For the year, the Naz is up a solid 35.25 percent, followed by an 18.27 percent gain for the SPX and 11.89 percent advance for the Dow.

With a lack of economic data on tap Friday and very few earnings reports, traders took their lead from analyst comments. Proctor & Gamble (PG) was the leading gainer on the Dow Friday with the stock up 3.33 percent to $57.38. Citigroup raised its rating on the stock to a "Buy" on the view the company is set to lower prices to win back market share.

The housing sector benefited from upgrades of Toll Brothers (TOL) and KB Home (KBH) at J.P. Morgan Securities. The broker stated that the housing sector will continue to recover during the next two years and this should lift stocks in the sector. TOL gained 2.79 percent to $22.13 with KBH rising 2.64 percent to $20.21.

Oil prices fell Friday to a price of $71.87, a decline of 0.83 percent. Crude fell on a stronger dollar Friday. However, this didn't hurt shares of Chevron (CVX), which rose 0.93 percent after being upgraded to "Outperform" at Credit Suisse. Overall, the Oil Services HOLDRs (OIH) saw solid gains on the session, rising 1.11 percent to $119.21.

Next week's economic calendar will remain light, though the FOMC statement on Wednesday will get plenty of attention. As September comes to an end, traders will be focusing more and more on earnings, which the bulls hope will continue to be a positive for stocks.

Friday was quadruple witching, which is the expiration of stock index futures, stock index options, stock options and single stock futures. This once a quarter event creates a lot of volume and some volatility. It also means that September options have expired and traders should have made the appropriate adjustments to option strategies.

Jody Osborne
Senior Writer & Options Strategist
Optionetics.com ~ Your Options Education Site