Stock Market Update

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market has started Friday on a higher note with the S&P 500 (+0.6%) trimming this week's loss to 0.3% while the Dow (+0.8%) is back to little changed for the week.

Ten sectors display early gains with four up at least 1.0%. The energy sector (+1.3%) is seeing an early continuation of this week's outperformance, followed by financials (+1.1%), industrials (+1.1%), and utilities (+1.1%).

On the downside, the consumer staples sector (-0.1%) is the only decliner by a slight margin.

Just reported, the University of Michigan's Consumer Sentiment Index fell to 55.1 (Briefing.com consensus 55.4) in the final reading for September from 55.4 in the preliminary reading.