Friday’s Stock Market Close: US Equities Finish Higher As Dow Stages Rebound, Apple Boosts Nasdaq

U.S. stocks closed higher on Friday as tech boosted Nasdaq, although lack of agreement on a new stimulus package in Washington weighed on sentiment, in a wild day of trading.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 114.67 points to 26,428.32, while the S&P 500 rose 24.9 points to 3,271.12 and the Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 157.46 points to 10,745.27.

For the week, the Dow slipped 0.16%.

Friday’s volume on the New York Stock Exchange totaled 3.99 billion shares with 1,121 issues advancing, 82 setting new highs, and 1,872 declining, with 18 stocks setting a new low .

Active movers were led by General Electric Co. (GE), Sonnet BioTherapeutics Holdings Inc. (SONN) and Nokia Corp. (NOK)

Emergency unemployment benefits expire on Friday, but Congress and the White House remain at odds over a new stimulus package. White House Chief Of Staff Mark Meadows said Democrats have rejected four proposals regarding the COVID-19 relief bill.

Four tech giants – Apple (AAPL), Facebook (FB), Amazon (AMZN) and Google parent Alphabet (GOOG) – delivered strong quarterly results after Thursday’s closing bell.

Apple shares surged 10.47% on Friday.

“Apple’s earnings report was breathtaking,” said Andrew Smith, chief investment strategist, Delos Capital Advisors. “Double-digit revenue growth during a quarter which saw most of the U.S. economy shutdown is remarkable. This earnings report shows that Apple is firing on all cylinders. Apple’s stock crossed the symbolic $400 a share threshold in after-hours trading, boosted by a four-for-one stock split, which was icing on the cake for investors.”

“The numbers [from big tech companies] were amazing relative to expectations,” said Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley Advisory Group.

Dow component Chevron (CVX) fell 2.7% after it reported an $8.3 billion loss in the second quarter.

University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index for July came in at 72.5 for July, down from 78 in June.

U.S. personal income fell by 1.1% in June, after dropping 4.2% in May.

But consumer spending climbed by 5.6% in June after a record 8.5% surge in May.

“You have frothiness and you can’t rally on big cap tech blowing out the numbers. It’s potentially gut check time,” added Boockvar. “It’s the last day of the month. Who knows what kind of noise is related to that? I also have to believe part of it is the stimulus.”

Overnight in Asia markets finished mixed, as China’s Shanghai Composite index gained 0.71%; Japan’s Nikkei-225 dropped 2.82% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Exchange fell 0.47%.

In Europe markets finished mixed, as Britain’s FTSE-100 dropped 1.54%, while France’s CAC-40 fell 1.43% and Germany’s DAX slipped 0.54%.

Crude oil futures gained 1.18% at $40.39 per barrel, Brent crude rose 0.21% at $43.61. Gold futures jumped 2.55%.

The euro fell 0.58% at $1.1779 while the pound sterling slipped 0.07% at $1.3086.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped 0.92% to 0.536% while yield on the 30-year Treasury fell 0.75% to 1.189%.