U.S. stocks ended higher on Friday, as corporate profits helped offset the ongoing uncertainty regarding the U.S.'s debt ceiling. In world markets, European stocks finished mixed, as the DAX in Germany rose 0.1 percent and the CAC 40 in France fell 0.7 percent. Asian markets also ended mixed, as the Shanghai Composite rose 0.4 percent and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong fell 0.3 percent. In U.S. economic news, the University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey unexpectedly fell to a reading of 63.8 in July, versus the 71.4 reading that economists had forecasted. Meanwhile, the U.S. Labor Department reported that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) fell 0.2 percent in June. CPI is the most widely looked at gauge of inflation, and economists had been expecting it to fall 0.1 percent. In U.S. company news, Citigroup reported second-quarter net income of $3.3 billion, which beat analyst estimates. Shares of the company fell 1.5 percent. The U.S. dollar fell versus the euro but rose versus the yen. Light sweet crude oil for August delivery rose $1.72 to $97.41 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold futures rose $4.90 to $1,594.20 an ounce. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 42.61, or 0.3 percent, to 12,479.73. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 7.27, or 0.6 percent, to 1,316.14. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index rose 27.13, or 1.0 percent, to 2,789.80.
