The S&P 500 rose 2.5%, increasing its weekly gain to 6.6%. It’s the benchmark’s biggest weekly gain since November 2020.
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FILE PHOTO: A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (REUTERS/Andrew Kelly)
Stocks rose on Friday on Wall Streetand closed the week higher, breaking a seven-week losing streak, the longest since 2001.
El< b> S&P 500 rose 2.5%, increasing its weekly gain to 6.6%. It’s the benchmark’s biggest weekly gain since November 2020.
Tech stocks were a major factor driving the market higher. That sent the Nasdaq composite up 3.3 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.8 percent.
The S&P and Nasdaq suffered seven consecutive weekly declines, the longest series since the end of the dotcom crisis, while the Dow’s eight-week decline was the longest since 1932.
Retailers also made solid gains. The yield on the 10-year Treasury bond, which helps set mortgage interest rates, fell to 2.74%. US crude prices rose.
A Commerce Department report showed consumer spending rose0.9% in April-above than expected – and that inflation has slowed, which could prevent the Federal Reserve from raising interest rates as aggressively as previously thought.
“If the consumer is able to continue spending and the previous figure was revised upwards, this is good news”,said Robert Pavlik of Dakota Wealth in Fairfield, Connecticut. “Right now it’s just a rally in a bear market (…) the market has become very oversold and people are looking for bargains.”
“It was inevitable that the streak of losses will end,” said Tim Ghriskey, senior portfolio strategist at Ingalls & Snyder. “Corrections and bear markets are followed by ‘bull’ markets.”
Generally upbeat guidance on corporate earnings and strong economic indicators have fueled expectations that the Fed may contain the highest inflation in decades without cooling the economy into contraction.
Data released on Friday showed better-than-expected consumer spending and seemed to confirm that inflation, which has lowered company profit forecasts and weighed on investors’ sentiment, has peaked.
(With information from AP and Reuters )