US stocks rallied to close out the trading week on Friday as the S&P 500 set a closing record for the third time in five days after an upbeat US jobs report and data on Chinese manufacturing eased concerns about slowing global growth.
Job growth slowed less than forecast last month, as a drag from a strike at General Motors Co was made up for in other areas of the labor market, while job gains in the prior two months were stronger than previously thought.
“A nice surprise, and also there were upwards revisions for September and August,” said Jeff Kravetz regional investment strategist at US Bank Wealth Management in Phoenix, Arizona. “To us that is an indication of the resiliency of the economy this late in the cycle and for today that is what is putting investors at ease and putting them on a risk-on mode here.”
The strong jobs number helped overshadow a report that showed the manufacturing sector contracted for a third straight month.
Along with the S&P’s new high, the NASDAQ Composite eclipsed its July closing record. The S&P has climbed for four straight weeks, its longest streak since February, while the NASDAQ has gained in five straight weeks as quarterly earnings have come in stronger than anticipated and US-China trade rhetoric has appeared to be productive.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average sat less than 12 points from a closing record.
Before the report, sentiment was supported by data showing China manufacturing activity unexpectedly expanded last month, easing concerns about a slowdown in Chinese demand as a result of US tariffs.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average on Friday rose 300.86 points, or 1.11 percent, to 27,347.36, the S&P 500 gained 29.36 points, or 0.97 percent, to 3,066.91 and the NASDAQ Composite added 94.04 points, or 1.13 percent, to 8,386.40.
For the week, the Dow rose 1.44 percent, the S&P 500 climbed 1.47 percent and the NASDAQ rose 1.74 percent.
US-China trade news remained supportive for stocks, as Chinese state-run Xinhua news agency reported the two countries have “reached consensus on principles.”
Earlier, US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross said the “phase one” trade pact with China appeared to be in good shape.
About 76 percent of the 356 S&P 500 companies that have reported so far have beaten profit estimates, according to Refinitiv data.
However, profit growth forecasts for the next four quarters have been revised lower, even as expectations for a decline in third-quarter earnings have shrunk to 0.8 percent from 2.2 percent at the start of last month.
Oil major Exxon Mobil Corp rose 3 percent after it beat recently lowered third-quarter profit expectations.
The energy sector gained 2.5 percent as the best-performing S&P sector, and oil prices jumped on trade deal progress.
Qorvo Inc jumped 20.23 percent after the Apple Inc supplier announced a US$1 billion share buyback plan and forecast third-quarter revenue above expectations.
However, Pinterest Inc plunged 17.02 percent after the online scrapbook company missed quarterly revenue estimates.
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the New York Stock Exchange by a 2.81-to-1 ratio; on NASDAQ, a 2.86-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 posted 44 new 52-week highs and two new lows; the NASDAQ Composite recorded 113 new highs and 39 new lows.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the