U.S. Stocks Finish Black Friday in the Green

"This is just one of those days that you don't pay much attention to in terms of the directionality," said Christopher Orndorff, managing principal at Payden & Rygel. He said he expects consumer spending to continue to decrease in the fourth quarter. "It's going to be a very subdued Black Friday. It will also be a very subdued general shopping season."

Ahead of Friday's session, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS Quote) said the British government would take a 58% stake in the bank following tepid reception of a stock offering by the company. Shares added 5.1% to $17.58.

Meanwhile, General Motors (GM Quote) has hired a real estate company to help it raise up to $257 million in sales and other deals related to its European offices and assets, according to a report by the Financial Times. GM shares gained 8.9% to $5.24.

Chesapeake Energy (CHK Quote) shares dropped 15% to $17.18 after the company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it would sell 50 million shares of its stock at a discount to the previous session's closing price.

On the pharmaceutical front, antitrust investigators from the European Union said that Pfizer (PFE Quote), GlaxoSmithKline (GSK Quote) and Sanofi-Aventis (SNY Quote) blocked generic drugs from the market, costing European patients as much as $3.87 billion.

Pfizer gained 2.2% to $16.43, GlaxoSmithKline added 2.8% to $34.44, and Sanofi-Aventis edged up fractionally at $27.66.

Elsewhere among pharma firms, AstraZeneca (AZN Quote) faces delays for its infant lung drug Motavizumab thanks to inquiries by the Food and Drug Administration. Shares ticked up 1.6% to $37.73.