The US benchmark S&P 500 stock index on Friday snapped a six-day losing streak as technology stocks recovered after a week of losses, with investors looking for bargains ahead of the third-quarter earnings reporting season.
Even the hard-hit S&P 500 energy and financial sectors managed to close the session with slight gains after a late afternoon rally.
The S&P technology index gained 3.2 percent on the day, showing its strongest one-day gain since March 26, although it still registered its biggest weekly drop since March 23.
“People are starting to buy in, thinking the higher flying growth stocks were oversold. They wanted to get in before next week when earnings start coming,” said Janna Sampson, co-chief investment officer at OakBrook Investments LLC in Lisle, Illinois.
However, until the US and China reach a trade deal, the rebound in the stock market could be vulnerable as investors are anxious about the impact of tariffs on corporate profits.
“If earnings come out good I think this rally is sustainable if we don’t get negative trade news. Trade news is the wild card. That’s the big if,” Sampson said.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 287.16 points, or 1.15 percent, to 25,339.99, the S&P 500 gained 38.76 points, or 1.42 percent, to 2,767.13 and the NASDAQ Composite added 167.83 points, or 2.29 percent, to 7,496.89.
For the week, the Dow lost 4.19 percent, the S&P fell 4.1 percent and the NASDAQ shed 3.74 percent.
The technology sector’s biggest boosts were Apple Inc and Microsoft Corp, which rose more than 3 percent, while Visa Inc and Mastercard Inc climbed almost 5 percent, boosted by strong credit card sales included in bank earnings reports, Sampson said.
The S&P500’s financial sector ended the day up 0.1 percent and the S&P 500 banks sub-sector closed down 0.4 percent, well above its session low. The biggest drag on the sub-sector was JPMorgan Chase & Co, which closed down 1.0 percent, despite reporting a quarterly profit that beat expectations.
PNC Financial led the percentage losers among bank stocks, with a 5.6 percent drop after the regional bank reported disappointing quarterly loan growth and said it expected only a small improvement in lending this quarter.
The three gainers among banks included Citigroup Inc, which rose 2 percent, and Wells Fargo, which eked out a 1.3 percent gain after upbeat results.
Netflix and Amazon Inc, some of the names that took a big hits in the week’s sell-off, rose 5.7 percent and and 4.0 percent respectively.
The bank results launch a quarterly reporting season that will give the clearest picture yet of the effect on profits from US President Donald Trump’s trade war with China.
Earnings at S&P 500 companies are estimated to have risen 21.5 percent in the third quarter, I/B/E/S data from Refinitiv showed, a slowdown from the previous two quarters.
Energy stocks ended the day up 0.3 percent as oil prices steadied to settle up slightly after a volatile session dropped on a weakening oil demand outlook.
The consumer discretionary and communication services sectors, both rose more than 2 percent.
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1.38-to-1 ratio; on NASDAQ a 1.51-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 index posted no new 52-week highs and 52 new lows; the NASDAQ Composite recorded 10 new highs and 234 new lows.
Volume on US exchanges was 8.91 billion shares, well above the 7.78 billion average for the past 20 trading days, but below the soaring volume of Thursday’s and Wednesday’s sessions.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last