U.S. stocks closed near record highs on Friday after the largest U.S. bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, soothed worries that the first-quarter earnings season would dampen Wall Street’s big rally back from last year’s slump. The S&P 500 is now within a percent of September’s record closing high, and the S&P 500 Total Return Index, which includes reinvested dividends, in fact regained record levels, recovering ground lost after a punishing sell-off in the closing months of the year which brought the benchmark index within a rounding error of bear market territory. Since then, the three major indexes notched their best ... (full story)