NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street traders sometimes root for year-end “Santa Claus rallies,” but on Friday, hardly a creature was stirring as stocks finished slightly higher on the quietest full day of trading in more than a year. Health care companies brought in most of the gains.
Major U.S. indexes stayed in a narrow range throughout the day. Drugmakers and other companies in health care did the best, while retailers continued to take small losses just before the holiday. Energy companies also slipped, and they took their first weekly loss since the beginning of November. The Dow Jones industrial average, however, rose for the seventh week in a row.
Defense contractor Lockheed Martin fell after President-elect Donald Trump again tweeted that the company’s F-35 fighter jet costs too much. The stock is down almost 6 percent this month.
“This is a negotiating tactic,” said Josh Sullivan, a Seaport Global analyst who covers aerospace and defense companies. “You’re seeing the negative portion of the negotiation in public where privately they may be more constructive.”
The Dow Jones industrial average picked up 14.93 points, or 0.1 percent, to 19,933.81. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index gained 2.83 points, or 0.1 percent, to 2,263.79. The Nasdaq composite rose 15.27 points, or 0.3 percent, to 5,462.69.
Small-company stocks did far better, as the Russell 2000 climbed 8.85 points, or 0.6 percent, to 1,371.51.
Fewer than 2 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange. That’s barely half the volume of an average day. The last full trading day with that little activity was in October 2015.
Sullivan, of Seaport, said Trump’s tweets are a new type of bad publicity for defense companies. But even if the President-elect periodically criticizes the companies in public, investors are still optimistic about their prospects under his administration. If Trump builds up the U.S. nuclear arsenal, as he proposed doing in a tweet Thursday, that would also involve more military spending.
“Ultimately (Trump) ran on a strong defense spending platform,” he said. Defense stocks have done better than the rest of the market overall since the election.
Drug companies made small gains on Friday. Botox maker Allergan rose $5.09, or 2.6 percent, to $199.08. Bristol-Myers Squibb picked up 85 cents, or 1.4 percent, to $59.61 and health insurer Aetna added $1.26, or 1 percent, to $125.95.
Benchmark U.S. crude added 7 cents to close at $53.02 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, the international standard, rose 11 cents to close at $55.16 a barrel in London.

In other energy trading, natural gas prices continued to climb as investors anticipated that colder weather will lead to more demand for home heating. Natural gas futures rose 12 cents, or 3.5 percent, to $3.66 per 1,000 cubic feet. Wholesale gasoline added 2 cents to $1.63 a gallon and heating oil stood still at $2.48 a gallon.
The dollar slid to 117.26 yen from 117.60 yen. The euro rose to $1.0452 from $1.0433.
Bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.54 percent from 2.55 percent.
The price of gold rose $2.90 to $1,133.60 an ounce. Silver lost 11 cents to $15.76 an ounce. Copper gave up 2 cents to $2.48 a pound.
Britain’s FTSE 100 and the CAC-40 in France both rose 0.1 percent. In Germany, the DAX lost 0.1 percent. The Hang Seng of Hong Kong retreated 0.3 percent and the Kospi in South Korea finished slightly lower. Japanese markets were closed for a holiday.