US stock indexes end strong week with tiny gains

U.S. stock indexes marked their fourth consecutive gain Friday, an upbeat finish for a week that got off to a turbulent start as investors fretted about Britain's vote to leave the European Union.

In the days since the two-day market tumble ended on Tuesday, the U.S. stock market came close to regaining all the ground lost since the vote last week. It ended the week up 3 percent, its biggest weekly gain since November.

The main stock indexes in Europe posted even bigger gains this week, with British stocks recouping all their losses along the way.

At the same time, demand for U.S. Treasurys surged this week, driving bond prices sharply higher. That pulled down the yield on the 10-year Treasury note to 1.44 percent Friday, close to its record low.

Investors also bid up the price of gold, another traditional safe-haven.

"Clearly there is still an underlying sense of nervousness," said JJ Kinahan, chief strategist at TD Ameritrade. "No reasonable economic theory would be telling you to buy bonds with this kind of yield. It's more 'I don't care if I don't make yield, I want my money back.'"

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 19.38 points, or 0.1 percent, to 17,949.37. The Standard & Poor's 500 index added 4.09 points, or 0.2 percent, to 2,102.95. The Nasdaq composite rose 19.89 points, or 0.4 percent, to 4,862.57.