Technology stocks again rescued Wall Street on Friday, lifting the main indexes by more than 1%, but that wasn’t enough to prevent the Dow and the S&P 500 from suffering their longest weekly losing streaks in a year.
Fear of a slowing US and European economies continued to drive the almost month-long run of volatility and market instability.
Both the Dow and S&P 500 recorded their fourth straight weekly declines, the longest weekly losing streak since August last year.
The Nasdaq ended higher over the week after falling the previous three and is now up 22% for the year.
Shares of tech mega-caps Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon led the way, followed by Nvidia Corp and Facebook, rising at least 2.1% on Friday.
The S&P 500 is up by just 2% for the year.
We know where the bubble is as we approach the end of the quarter this week and the looming third-quarter reporting season starting in three week.
Those reports – especially from the megatechs, will test the market’s resilience on the cusp of the November 3 elections.
The Dow rose 358.52 points, or 1.34%, to end the week at 27,173.96. The S&P 500 added 51.87 points, or 1.60%, to end at 3,298.46 and the Nasdaq finished up 241.30 points, or 2.26%, at 10,913.56.
For the week, the Dow fell 1.74%, the S&P 500 slid 0.63% but the Nasdaq gained 1.1%.
Besides the 0.6% fall in the S&P 500, Eurozone shares lost 4.2%, Japanese shares fell 0.7% and Chinese shares fell 3.5%.
Australian shares though rose 1.7% through the week with banks boosted by the Government moving to relax the responsible lending laws.
