S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 Surge to Best Week Since October 2023

S&P 500, Nasdaq 100 Mark Seventh Straight Positive Session, Strongest Week Since October 2023: Friday's Top Movers - Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO), Bath & Body Works (NYSE:BBWI)

Upbeat consumer sentiment, declining jobless claims and robust retail sales boost investor confidence. S&P 500 earnings hit record highs. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 indices notched their seventh consecutive day of gains on Friday, culminating in their strongest weekly performance since late October 2023 as investor sentiment toward risk assets improved in response to a string of upbeat economic indicators released throughout the week. Tracking these indices, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY and the Invesco QQQ Trust, Series 1 QQQ closed with modest daily gains of 0.2% and 0.1%, respectively. For the week, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 soared 4% and 5.5%, marking their best weekly performances in 10 months. The Dow Jones Index, as tracked by the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF DIA, closed 0.2% higher, marking its fourth straight session of gains and the best week since December 2023. Wall Street Extends Winning Streak On Bullish Economic Data, Record-High Earnings On Friday, traders welcomed a better-than-expected consumer sentiment reading from the University of Michigan, which signaled growing optimism among consumers. A day earlier, initial jobless claims for the week ending Aug. 10 surprised to the downside, indicating fewer concerns about the resilience of the labor market, while retail sales spiked more than expected by 1% on a month-over-month basis in July, marking the strongest month since January 2023. Softer-than-anticipated inflation data for both consumers and producers released earlier this week further fueled market enthusiasm, cementing expectations for an interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve next month. The upbeat data has tempered bets on a larger rate reduction, with market participants now leaning toward a more modest 25-basis-point cut. Market-implied probabilities for a larger 50-basis-point reduction have tumbled to 23%, according to CME Group's FedWatch tool, as economic data signals no rush for an overly loose monetary policy. "The latest data support our view that betting against consumers when jobs are expanding is a bad bet. Even bad weather didn't stop them from going to the malls last month," said Ed Yardeni, president at Yardeni Research. The latest earnings season provides no indication of an impending recession, Yardeni said. With over 90% of S&P 500 companies having reported second-quarter results, collective operating earnings per share for the index surged 10.9% year-over-year to a record high of $60.19. S&P 500's Top 5 Movers On Friday Nasdaq 100's Top 5 Movers On Friday Read Next: Bill Ackman Cuts Chipotle Stake Right Before Stock Drop: Did Billionaire See What The Market Couldn't? Photo generated using artificial intelligence via MidJourney. Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

The S&P 500 is nearing all-time highs as stocks have best week of the year

Wall Street coasted to the close of its best week since November, as U.S. stocks drifted a bit higher Friday. The S&P 500 rose 0.2% for a seventh straight gain and pulled back within 2% of its all-time high set last month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 96 points, or 0.2%, and the Nasdaq composite added 0.2%. For the week, the S&P 500 added nearly 3.9%, its best since November 2023. The Nasdaq gained 5.2%, and the Dow rose 2.9%. Treasury yields eased in the bond market following a couple mixed reports on the U.S. economy. One showed homebuilders broke ground on fewer projects last month than forecast, which threw some cold water on the market. Optimism had been rising earlier in the week following a flurry of better-than-expected reports on everything from inflation to sales at U.S. retailers. But a report later in the morning suggested U.S. consumers are feeling betterabout the economy than expected. That's a big deal for Wall Street because their spending makes up the bulk of the economy. Friday's relatively calm trading capped a manic week where strong economic data helped right Wall Street following a scary run. The S&P 500 had briefly dropped close to 10% below its record last week, as stocks reeled worldwide on a range of worries. Many of those questions are still hanging over the market, just not quite as precariously as before. One concern centered on the strength of the U.S. economy following a surprisingly weak report on hiring last month. Even though confidence rose in the economy's strength following this week's strong run of reports, it is still likely slowing under the weight of high interest rates. That's by design. The Federal Reserve's goal has been trying to cool what was a hot job market by making it more expensive for companies and households to borrow and spend. The Fed did that that to remove upward pressure on inflation, which peaked at more than 9% two summers ago. The question is whether the slowdown in the economy's growth will overshoot and become a recession. That's still to be determined, but the hope on Wall Street is that an expected cut to interest rates at the Fed's next meeting in September will help forestall that. The market's focus will swing next week to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. That's where Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will give a speech late in the week, and the setting has been home to big policy announcements in the past. Because the Fed has said its upcoming moves will depend in large part on what data reports at the time say, "it will be difficult for Powell to pre-commit to a particular trajectory at Jackson Hole," say economists at Deutsche Bank led by Matthew Luzzetti. But Powell could offer hints about whether the Fed is hoping to merely remove the brakes from the economy through rate cuts or give it an accelerant. A second big concern for the market has focused on whether investors took the prices of Nvidia and other highly influential Big Tech stocks too high in their frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology. That debate is still ongoing. Within just an hour on Friday morning, Nvidia went from being the single heaviest weight on the S&P 500 to the strongest force lifting the index. It flipped from an early 1.4% drop to end with a rise of 1.4%. Such swings have become typical for the stock that's become the face of the AI craze. After soaring more than 170% through the year's first six and a half months, Nvidia plunged more than 20% over the ensuing three weeks. A third factor that's caused global markets' big swings is more technical, one triggered by a hike to interest rates by the Bank of Japan. That forced hedge funds around the world to abandon a popular trade en masse, where they had borrowed Japanese yen at cheap rates to invest elsewhere. The forced and sudden selling that ensued hit markets worldwide, but it calmed after a top Bank of Japan official said it won't raise rates further as long as markets are unstable. Analysts, though, say more potential selling may still be left to uncoil in the system. On Wall Street, H&R Block leaped 12.1% for one of the market's bigger gains after it reported a bigger-than-expected profit for the latest quarter. It also increased its dividend 17% and announced a stock buyback program of up to $1.5 billion. All told, the S&P 500 rose 11.03 points to 5,554.25. The Dow gained 96.70 to 40,659.76, and the Nasdaq composite added 37.22 to 17,631.72. In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 3.88% from 3.92% late Thursday. The two-year yield, which more closely tracks expectations for Fed action, fell to 4.05% from 4.10% late Thursday. In stock markets abroad, Japan's Nikkei 225 jumped 3.6% to cap its best week in more than four years. It was a strong rebound from its sharp losses the week before, which included the worst day for the Japanese stock market since the Black Monday crash of 1987.