04:50 PM EDT, 05/10/2024 (MT Newswires) -- US benchmark equity indexes closed mostly higher Friday, as investors evaluated remarks by Federal Reserve officials and a consumer sentiment survey.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.3% to 39,512.8, while the S&P 500 added 0.2% to 5,222.7. The Nasdaq Composite was little changed at 16,340.9. Consumer staples led sector gainers, while consumer discretionary saw the steepest decline.

For the week, the Dow jumped 2.2%, while the S&P 500 increased 1.9%. The Nasdaq rose 1.1%.

Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic told Reuters in an interview that he's still hopeful that policymakers can lower their benchmark lending rate this year, though the timing and magnitude of the policy easing is not certain.

Separately, Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said the central bank's current monetary policy is likely "relatively restrictive," Reuters reported. "There isn't at this time much evidence in my view that inflation is stalling out at 3%."

Fed Governor Michelle Bowman said it's of "utmost importance" that policymakers maintain credibility in their fight against inflation by moving ahead carefully and deliberately to achieve their 2% target.

Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan said "it's just too early to think" about lowering interest rates amid upside risks to inflation, according to a separate Reuters report.

In a bid to combat inflation, the central bank's Federal Open Market Committee tightened monetary policy by 525 basis points from March 2022 through July 2023. It has kept interest rates unchanged since then, with its latest pause coming last week.

The US two-year yield increased 6.3 basis points to 4.87%, while the 10-year rate gained 5.1 basis points to 4.50%.

In economic news, US consumer sentiment tumbled more than expected so far this month as inflation expectations edged higher, preliminary data from the University of Michigan's Surveys of Consumers showed.

"While consumers had been reserving judgment for the past few months, they now perceive negative developments on a number of dimensions," Surveys of Consumers Director Joanne Hsu said. "They expressed worries that inflation, unemployment and interest rates may all be moving in an unfavorable direction in the year ahead."

West Texas Intermediate crude oil declined 1.2% to $78.31 per barrel Friday.

In company news, Mettler-Toledo International ( MTD ) shares jumped 17%, the best performer on the S&P 500. The company late Thursday reported better-than-expected first-quarter financial results.

Akamai Technologies ( AKAM ) shares slumped 11%, the steepest decline on the S&P 500. The cloud computing company's first-quarter revenue fell short of Wall Street's estimates late Thursday, dragged down by weakness in content delivery solutions. The company offered a downbeat outlook for the ongoing three-month period.

Moderna ( MRNA ) saw the biggest drop on the Nasdaq and among the steepest on the S&P 500, down 4.4%, after the drugmaker said the Food and Drug Administration has pushed back its pending review of the company's respiratory syncytial virus vaccine to the end of the month due to "administrative constraints."

Gold rose 1.3% to $2,370.50 per troy ounce, while silver gained 0.3% to $28.44 per ounce.