Stocks Win for a Whole Week

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Stocks booked a full week of gains, even though European leaders are still struggling to stabilize the eurozone. However, one strategist warns that recent market strength shouldn't be mistaken for bullishness.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 76 points, or 0.7%, to close at 11,509, putting the Dow up 5% for the week but largely flat for the month. The S&P 500 added 7 points, or 0.6%, at 1216, and the Nasdaq closed 15 points, or 0.6% higher at 1216.

"The strength in our market shouldn't be confused with a change in attitude to feeling more positive about our economy," said Marc Pado, U.S. market strategist at Cantor Fitzgerald. "This is more of a flight to safety, and some possible short covering going into the weekend. When you look at what's being bought, people are not buying risk -- they're buying safety," Pado said, adding that people seem to feel that they've been unexposed to tech and retail sectors.

"In Europe, there was a selloff late in the session and I think that money is flowing into large-cap defensive names over here," he said.

Procter & Gamble(PG) was topping the Dow alongside Intel(INTC), IBM(IBM) and Boeing(BA).

Bank of America(BAC), JPMorgan Chase(JPM) and Pfizer(PFE) were the biggest laggards.

The FTSE in London and the DAX in Frankfurt pared earlier gains to close up by 0.6%, and 1.2%, respectively. French and Italian markets finished the week in negative territory. Earlier, Asian markets took their cues from strong gains in U.S. stocks. Hong Kong's Hang Seng closed up by 1.4%, and Japan's Nikkei soared 2.3%.

European finance ministers meeting in Poland to address Europe's persistent debt crisis failed to agree on how to address the European debt crisis during the first of a two-day meeting on Friday. U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who also attended the meeting, pushed leaders to expand the eurozone's bailout fund to also help affected banks, but found little support for the plan, according to a New York Times report. So far, eurozone countries have agreed that they will decide in October whether Greece will receive the next bailout payment, worth around $11 billion.