Stocks are building on Thursday’s gains with all three major indexes climbing in the first 90 minutes of trading.

The Nasdaq is leading the way with a 1.62% increase to 1837, followed by a 0.91% gain in the S&P 500 to 927, while the Dow is up 0.66% to 8612.

Trading has been particularly heavy on ‘quadruple witching Friday’ ― the quarterly event marking the expiration of equity options, index options, single stock futures and index futures.

"What we've generally been seeing in this expiration cycle is people rolling over whatever options positions they have," Allen Greenberg, options chief for BNY ConvergEx, told the Wall Street Journal. "They're not necessarily looking for a big new move in either direction."

Year to date, the S&P is up 2.5%, though since Monday the index has lost lost 2.15% as the the Obama administration proposed new regulatory measures that have since gone to Congress. The S&P would have to move up 16 additional points to end this week on par.

No macroeconomic data has been released today, nor will any come out this afternoon.

 


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