Wall Street on Friday edged higher, with the Dow extending its streak of record-setting gains to 11 days, as increases in utilities and other safety plays outweighed declines in financials.
Major Wall Street indices have rallied to record levels since the election of US President Donald Trump, boosted by pledges of tax reforms, reduced regulations and increased infrastructure spending.
However, equities were in negative territory for a majority of the trading session, as investors grew hesitant after recent comments from the Trump administration indicated its pro-growth policies might have a longer route to implementation.
As details remain scarce on Trump’s plans, markets have kept to tight daily trading ranges.
The benchmark S&P 500 has not registered a move of at least 1 percent in either direction since Dec. 7.
Analysts have become more leery of stocks, as they have run up without concrete details and are becoming more expensive. The forward price-to-earnings ratio of the S&P 500 is 17.8.
“Certainly the sentiment is improving much faster than the actual activity, so we’ve seen valuations probably get a little bit ahead of themselves,” Denver, Colorado-based Atlantic Trust Private Wealth Management managing director Brant Houston said. “Ultimately we need to see those fundamental changes come through to validate that improved sentiment.”
US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin on Thursday said any policy would probably have only a limited impact this year.
Investors will look for clarity on Trump’s plan on Tuesday, when he addresses a joint session of US Congress.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 11.44 points, or 0.05 percent, to end at 20,821.76, while the S&P 500 gained 3.53 points, or 0.15 percent, to close at 2,367.34 and the NASDAQ Composite added 9.8 points, or 0.17 percent, to end at 5,845.31.
For the week, the Dow Jones was up 0.95 percent from its 20,624.05 close on Feb. 17, the S&P 500 gained 0.68 percent from a close of 2,351.16 a week earlier and the NASDAQ Composite rose 0.12 percent from 5,838.58.
Utilities, up 1.4 percent, were the best-performing of the 11 major S&P sectors, lifted by a 3.1 gain in Public Service Enterprise Group Inc after its quarterly results.
Financials, the best-performing S&P sector since the election, weighed on both the Dow and S&P 500 with a decline of 0.75 percent as US Treasury yields weakened.
Also dragging the group lower was a 1.5 percent decline in the Goldman Sachs Group Inc to US$247.35 after Berenberg cut its rating on the stock to “sell.”
The Dow extended its run of record-setting gains to 11, the longest streak since 1987.
Shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co fell 6.9 percent to US$22.96 after the company cut its full-year profit forecast.
The J.C. Penney Co fell 5.8 percent to US$6.46 after the department store operator reported a bigger-than-expected drop in same-store sales for the holiday quarter.
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the New York Stock Exchange by a 1.11-to-1 ratio; on the NASDAQ composite, a 1.16-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted 41 new 52-week highs and two new lows; the NASDAQ Composite recorded 88 new highs and 54 new lows.
About 6.75 billion shares changed hands in US exchanges, compared with the 6.8 billion daily average over the past 20 sessions.
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