US stocks rebounded from early losses to close mostly higher on Friday amid hopes that Congress members were making progress toward ending the government shutdown. The S&P 500 and the Dow Jones closed 0.3% higher, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq closed near the flatline as AI giants remained under pressure.

Senate Republicans rejected Democrats' offer to scale down shutdown demands, but lingering hopes of an incoming agreement improved risk sentiment before the closing bell. The suspension of operations and government data were evidenced by the deteriorating consumer confidence measured by the University of Michigan survey, which came out at the second-worst reading on record in November.

Consumer defensive and energy companies led the gains, with Exxon Mobil, T-Mobile, and Coca-Cola adding more than 2%. In turn, concerns that valuations for AI companies have been stretched too far continued to pressure the tech sector, with Tesla dropping 4% while Meta and Oracle fell 2%.

Source: Trading Economi