US stocks were slightly higher on Friday, recovering from their worst session since early February, but investors were reluctant to make big bets ahead of a referendum in Crimea this weekend. The S&P 500 was below a key technical support level of 1,850 for the second day. Curbing investors' enthusiasm for equities, Russia's navy said fighter jets had started training exercises over the Mediterranean Sea, an announcement likely to raise tensions in the stand-off with Ukraine.
The CBOE Volatility index VIX, Wall Street's so-called fear gauge, rose 3.9 percent to 16.81. A key emerging market exchange-traded fund, the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF, gained 0.9 percent to $38.54 after falling nearly 2 percent in the previous session. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 28.93 points or 0.18 percent, to 16,137.82, the S&P 500 gained 3.06 points or 0.17 percent, to 1,849.4 and the Nasdaq Composite added 5.839 points or 0.14 percent, to 4,266.259. The Dow and the S&P 500 were set for weekly declines after two weeks of gains, while the Nasdaq was headed for the first down week after five weeks of gains.
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