The S&P 500 ended the week substantially higher, finishing out a strong quarter for stocks. In fact, the benchmark index had its best quarter since 2009 as major central banks, including the Federal Reserve and the ECB, have showed a renewed willingness to stay accomodative and U.S. officials have called for the Fed to cut rates.

ECONOMIC EVENTS: In the U.S., personal income rebounded 0.2% in February and spending increased 0.1% in January. The Chicago PMI Business Barometer Index for March came in at 58.7. New home sales rose 4.9% to a 667,000 unit rate in February, which was a surprise to the upside. The University of Michigan consumer sentiment reading for March was revised up from a preliminary 97.8 to a final reading of 98.4. Baker Hughes reported that the U.S. rig count is down 10 rigs from last week to 1,006.

In trade news, the White House announced that officials, including Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin, "continued to make progress during candid and constructive discussions" on trade negotiations during their visit to China and that meetings are planned with Vice Premier Liu He and the Chinese delegation in Washington next week.

Meanwhile, Director of the National Economic Council Larry Kudlow said in an interview on CNBC that he believes the U.S. economy looks fundamentally healthy and that the Fed should cut rates by 50 basis points "immediately." Kudlow's 50 basis point rate cut urging echoes the recently expressed sentiments of prospective Fed nominee Stephen Moore.

In Europe, President of the European Council Donald Tusk called a European Council meeting on April 10 following the rejection of the Brexit withdrawal agreement by the U.K. House of Commons.

TOP NEWS: Wells Fargo (WFC) announced on Thursday night that Tim Sloan, who took over as CEO of the bank in October 2016 after John Stumpf stepped down in the wake of the firm's fake account scandal, is resigning, effective immediately. Allen Parker, the bank's general counsel, will take over as interim CEO while the bank conducts an external search process for a new CEO and president.

In M&A news, Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) announced that independent proxy advisory firms Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis & Co. both recommend that shareholders vote "for" the approval of the issuance of Bristol-Myers shares in connection with the company's pending merger with Celgene (CELG). Following the news, Bristol shareholder Starboard Value said it was "extremely disappointed" by the proxy voting advisory firms' conclusions, though it has decided to withdraw its proxy solicitation to vote against the Celgene deal. Meanwhile, Bristol-Myers issued a statement saying it is "pleased" with Celgene's settlement with Lotus Pharmaceutical and Alvogen Pine Brook relating to patents for Revlimid.

DowDuPont (DWDP) updated its previously stated guidance for the first quarter of 2019. As a result of "near-term trends and discrete headwinds in some of its key value chains in the Agriculture and Materials Science divisions," DowDuPont now expects first quarter net sales to be down high-single digits percent, versus its previous guidance of down mid-single digits percent.

Ride-sharing service operator Lyft (LYFT) came public on the Nasdaq market, pricing its IPO at $72 per share and opening for trading at $87.24 per share. The shares closed up 8.74% at $78.29.

MAJOR MOVERS: Among the noteworthy gainers was Eagle Materials (EXP), which rose 15% after Sachem Head disclosed an 8.9% stake in the company and said it will seek talks with the company. Also higher was BlackBerry (BB), which gained 13.6% after reporting quarterly results.

Among the notable losers was AstraZeneca (AZN), which slid 5.9% after entering a commercialization pact with Daiichi Sankyo for cancer drug candidate DS-8201 with an up front payment of $1.35B and total potential payment of $6.9B. Also lower were Smart Global (SGH) and RH (RH), which fell a respective 19.6% and 22% after reporting quarterly results.

INDEXES: The Dow rose 211.22, or 0.82%, to 25,928.68, the Nasdaq gained 60.16, or 0.78%, to 7,729.32, and the S&P 500 advanced 18.94, or 0.67%, to 2,834.38.