The S&P 500 ended higher on Friday as investors weighed the prospect of more fiscal stimulus against fears of further business disruptions due to a record rise in COVID-19 cases in the US.
Netflix Inc tumbled 6.5 percent after the video streaming service forecast slower-than-expected subscriber growth during the third quarter, pulling the communication services sector down 0.4 percent.
The S&P 500 utilities, real-estate and healthcare indices were the session’s strongest gainers.
However, a 1.5 percent drop in Goldman Sachs Group Inc helped keep the Dow Jones Industrial Average in negative territory.
For the week, the S&P 500 and the Dow rose 1.25 percent and 2.29 percent respectively, after optimism over an eventual novel coronavirus vaccine and hopes of a post-pandemic economic recovery helped investors look past a continuous surge in COVID-19 cases.
Cases on Friday rose by at least 70,674, after climbing by a record 77,499 on Thursday.
The NASDAQ ended 1.08 percent lower for the week as investors sold shares of high-flying companies including Microsoft Corp and Amazon.com Inc and moved into cyclical sectors.
Next week, the second-quarter earnings season shifts into high gear with reports expected from corporate heavyweights including Microsoft, Tesla Inc, Intel Corp and Verizon Communications Inc.
With this year largely written off as a disaster for US corporations because of the virus, investors are looking for information from companies about the potential size and timing of an eventual recovery.
“The question is what 2021 and 2022 look like, and what can folks glean from the commentary, especially when companies have withdrawn their guidance and made it difficult to get a sense of what their prospects look like,” said Tom Hainlin, a national investment strategist at US Bank Wealth Management.
The Cboe Volatility Index, known as Wall Street’s “fear gauge,” ended at 25.68, its lowest closing level since June 5.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.23 percent to end at 26,671.95 points, while the S&P 500 gained 0.28 percent to 3,224.73. The NASDAQ Composite climbed 0.28 percent to 10,503.19.
Unprecedented stimulus measures and improving economic data have helped the S&P 500 rise to within about 5 percent of its February record high.
Investors are also hoping for more fiscal support, as a program that offers additional unemployment benefits is set to expire on July 31. The US Congress is to return to Washington on Monday to debate another coronavirus aid bill.
“Both Republicans and Democrats have a strong incentive to agree upon further pre-election stimulus. It’s not a matter of ‘if’ a stimulus passes, it’s just what the size and content of that package looks like,” UBS Private Wealth Management senior vice president Andrea Bevis said.
BlackRock Inc, the world’s largest asset manager, rose 3.7 percent after reporting a jump in quarterly profit as investors poured money into its fixed-income funds and cash management services.
Volume on US exchanges was 9.5 billion shares, compared with the 11.6 billion average for the full session over the past 20 trading days.
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1.43-to-1 ratio; on the NASDAQ, a 1.50-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 posted 39 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the NASDAQ Composite recorded 89 new highs and 11 new lows.
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves hit a record high at the end of last month, surpassing the US$600 billion mark for the first time, the central bank said yesterday. Last month, the country’s foreign exchange reserves rose US$5.51 billion from a month earlier to reach US$602.94 billion due to an increase in returns from the central bank’s portfolio management, the movement of other foreign currencies in the portfolio against the US dollar and the bank’s efforts to smooth the volatility of the New Taiwan dollar. Department of Foreign Exchange Director-General Eugene Tsai (蔡炯民)said a rate cut cycle launched by the US Federal Reserve
The US government on Wednesday sanctioned more than two dozen companies in China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, including offshoots of a US chip firm, accusing the businesses of providing illicit support to Iran’s military or proxies. The US Department of Commerce included two subsidiaries of US-based chip distributor Arrow Electronics Inc (艾睿電子) on its so-called entity list published on the federal register for facilitating purchases by Iran’s proxies of US tech. Arrow spokesman John Hourigan said that the subsidiaries have been operating in full compliance with US export control regulations and his company is discussing with the US Bureau of
Businesses across the global semiconductor supply chain are bracing themselves for disruptions from an escalating trade war, after China imposed curbs on rare earth mineral exports and the US responded with additional tariffs and restrictions on software sales to the Asian nation. China’s restrictions, the most targeted move yet to limit supplies of rare earth materials, represent the first major attempt by Beijing to exercise long-arm jurisdiction over foreign companies to target the semiconductor industry, threatening to stall the chips powering the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. They prompted US President Donald Trump on Friday to announce that he would impose an additional
Pegatron Corp (和碩), a key assembler of Apple Inc’s iPhones, on Thursday reported a 12.3 percent year-on-year decline in revenue for last quarter to NT$257.86 billion (US$8.44 billion), but it expects revenue to improve in the second half on traditional holiday demand. The fourth quarter is usually the peak season for its communications products, a company official said on condition of anonymity. As Apple released its new iPhone 17 series early last month, sales in the communications segment rose sequentially last month, the official said. Shipments to Apple have been stable and in line with earlier expectations, they said. Pegatron shipped 2.4 million notebook