The S&P 500 rose on Friday and clinched a third straight winning week amid a red-hot November rally.
The broader index added 0.13% to settle at 4,514.02. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day higher by 0.01%, or 1.81 points, closing at 34,947.28. The Nasdaq Composite crept up by 0.08% to end the
session at 14,125.48.
The major averages each notched their third straight positive week. The S&P 500 added 2.2%, while the Nasdaq jumped about 2.4%. The Dow closed the week with a 1.9% advance. This is the first three-week win streak for the Dow and S&P 500 since July, and the first since June for the Nasdaq.
Those gains were sparked by tame U.S. inflation data that gave hope to investors that the Federal Reserve’s tough stance on rate policy may be in the rearview mirror.
Stocks have been on a tear this month. In November, the S&P 500 is up 7.6%, while the Dow has a 5.7% gain. The Nasdaq has leapt 9.9%.
Instead, Ladner believes the debate will centre around the next market leader. “Is it going to be small caps and emerging [markets], kind of like the losers of 2023?” he said. “Are they going to be the things that lead? Or are we going to get a continuation of the mega-cap tech rally that we’ve had basically all year long?”
Gap shares leapt 30% a day after the company posted better-than-expected results for its fiscal third quarter. Electric vehicle charging network ChargePoint slid 35% after announcing a shake-up in its C-suite late Thursday and cutting its forecast for third-quarter revenue.
In commodity-related news, oil prices rose on Friday, a day after sinking 5% to a four month-low on growing worries about burgeoning non-OPEC supply and cooling demand. The West Texas Intermediate contract for December rose 3.03% while the Brent contract for January rose 3.2% a barrel.
Both benchmarks have lost around a sixth of their value over the last four weeks, and prices are on track for their fourth straight week of losses.
As a result of the rise in oil, when assessing the US sectors, Energy was the best performer. Communication Services was the worst performer.
Futures
The SPI futures are pointing to a 0.4 per cent gain.
Currency
One Australian dollar at 7:35 AM was buying 65.13 US cents.
Commodities
Gold fell 0.13 per cent. Silver lost 0.31 per cent. Copper gained 0.88 per cent. Oil jumped 4.10 per cent.
Figures around the globe
European markets closed higher. London’s FTSE gained 1.26 per cent, Frankfurt added 0.84 per cent, and Paris closed 0.91 per cent higher.
Turning to Asian markets, Tokyo’s Nikkei added 0.48 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 2.12 per cent while China’s Shanghai Composite closed 0.11 per cent higher.
On Friday, the Australian share market closed 0.13 per cent lower at 7049
Sources: Bloomberg, FactSet, IRESS, TradingView, UBS, Bourse Data, Trading Economics, CoinMarketCap.
