Stocks rose higher Friday as Wall Street ended the week with four straight days of gains. The tech-heavy Nasdaq rose over 2%, while the S&P 500 Index gained over 1% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added over 270 points. Friday's close marked the best week since November 2020 for all three benchmarks.

For the week, the Nasdaq outperformed, added over 8%, while the S&P 500 Index saw a 6% gain and the Dow was 5.5% higher.

Here's how the market settled to close out the week:

S&P 500 Index (SPY  ): +1.17% or +51.42 points to 4,463.09

Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA  ): +0.79% or +273.45 points to 34,754.21

Nasdaq Composite Index (QQQ  ): +2.05% or +279.06 points to 13,893.84

Toyota, Renesas suspend production due to earthquake in Japan:

A major earthquake in Japan this week has caused companies like automaker Toyota (TM  ) and chip supplier Renesas Electronics (RNECY  ), to suspend some operations, CNBC reports.

Wednesday's 7.4 magnitude earthquake is expected to lower vehicle production this year by about 25,000 to 35,000 units, according to research firm LMC Automotive, CNBC reports.

"This is just another layer on top of an already fragile system where we're seeing a lot of pressure on the manufacturing side of the business," said Jeff Schuster, LMC's president of the Americas, quoted by CNBC. "It's certainly something the industry didn't need at this point."

Toyota said Friday it would suspend operations at more than half its plants across Japan, with 18 production lines at 11 plants being suspended for three days next week due to supply issues caused by the earthquake. Similarly, Renese operates three plant close to the earthquake's' epicenter, according to the company, adding its attempting to restart the plants and return them to pre-earthquake production volumes by Wednesday.

Existing home sales decline in February:

Sales of previously owned homes in the United States fell in February by the most since May 2020, as increases in mortgage rates and inflation weighed on overall housing market activity.

Existing homes sales fell by 7.2% month-over-month in February, according to the National Association of Realtors report published Friday, totalling a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 6.02 million. The print followed a 6.6% rise in sales for January.

The median price for an existing home rose annually in February to reach $357,300.

Here's how benchmarks started trading after market open:

S&P 500 Index: -0.31% or -13.51 points to 4,398.15

Dow Jones Industrial Average: -0.29% or -99.46 points to 34,381.30

Nasdaq Composite Index: -0.52% or -70.34 points to 13,549.34