The three major Wall Street indices ended higher on Friday for the day and week, with the S&P 500 (.SPX) and Dow (.DJI) breaking closing records, with investors taking strong economic data and bank gains as a sign of momentum. US pandemic recovery.
Nine of the 11 S&P subsectors rose on Friday. The exceptions were energy indices (.SPNY) and information technology (.SPLRCT). The former, down 0.9%, was weighed down by lower oil prices, while the latter was marginally lower, the day after the biggest close in history.
The S&P 500 and Dow Industrials posted their fourth consecutive earnings week. The S&P 500 posted three closing highs this week, while the Dow surpassed its best end in two consecutive days.
The technologically strong Nasdaq (.IXIC) finished less than one percent below its all-time high, reaching February 12.
Investor confidence in the future seems constant, with the volatility index (.VIX), the indicator of fear on Wall Street, falling by 1.9% to the lowest close in 14 months.
“Everyone is looking at how far we can go before we start raising interest rates,” said George Catrambone, DWS Group’s chief trading officer.
“Until we see that the significant rise in inflation and the Fed will start talking about rising interest rates, I think there will be conditions to block the gold.”
Reporting a 150% increase in quarterly profit on Friday, Morgan Stanley (MS.N) joined other major US banks in posting first-quarter figures, bolstering hopes for a quick economic recovery.
However, the investment bank’s shares fell 2.8% as it also revealed a loss of nearly $ 1 billion from the collapse of the private fund Archegos. Read more
Shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), Goldman Sachs Group (GS.N), Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) and Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N) rose 0.7% to 3.8% %. The S&P financial index (.SPSY) climbed to a second consecutive record.
“When everything is put in context and compared to other sectors, including technology, we will see that the financial results seem very strong,” said Diane Jaffee, senior portfolio manager at TCW.
“Given what we know about the Fed’s weakening of the dividend-raising ceilings and repayments after the next CCAR results in June, I think we will have a very strong semester – at least – for funding.”
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) rose 164.68 points, or 0.48%, to 34,200.67; The S&P 500 (.SPX) gained 15.05 points, or 0.36%, to 4,185.47; and Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) added 13.58 points, or 0.1%, to 14,052.34.
For the week, the S&P rose 1.4%, the Dow added 1.2%, and the Nasdaq gained 1.1%.
The Federal Reserve’s commitment to keep interest rates low despite rising inflation revived demand for technology-rich stocks, although bond yields rose again on Friday after hitting several-week lows a day earlier.
Among the technology hints that helped Wall Street recover last year after the coronavirus crash, Apple Inc. (AAPL.O) fell 0.3 percent on Friday, but Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN.O), Tesla Inc. (TSLA). O) and Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) all gained between 0.1% and 0.6%.
The volume of US stock markets was 9.99 billion shares, compared to the average of 11.02 billion for the full session in the last 20 trading days.
Advanced issues outnumbered those on the NYSE by a ratio of 1.36 to 1; on the Nasdaq, a 1.20 to 1 ratio favored declines.
The S&P 500 recorded 140 new 52-week highs and no new lows; Nasdaq Composite recorded 154 new highs and 102 new lows.
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