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The S&P 500 index and the Dow industrials were tilting higher Friday, carving out fresh intraday records to end a strong week for stocks that has mostly been driven by optimism around third-quarter earnings reports.
However, some weakness in the results of social-media platform Snap Inc.
SNAP,
as well as in chip maker Intel’s
INTC,
earnings was curbing the enthusiasm on Wall Street’s rise to all-time highs.
Later in the session, Federal Reserve Chairman will provide the last public statements from the central bank ahead of its policy gathering next month.
How are stock-index futures trading?
-
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
+0.25%
gained 143 points, or 0.4%, to 35,738, setting a record intraday high at 35,765.02. -
The S&P 500
SPX,
-0.01%
index picked up 3 points, or 0.1%, to reach 4,553, after carving out its all-time intraday peak at 4,555.05. -
The Nasdaq Composite Index
COMP,
-0.49%
was down 50 points, or 0.3%, at 15,164.
On Thursday, the Dow fell 6 points, or 0.02%, to 35,603, the S&P 500 increased 14 points, or 0.3%, to a record 4,549.78, and the Nasdaq Composite gained 94 points, or 0.62%, to 15216.
For the week, the Dow was up 1.3%, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite were aiming for weekly gains of 1.9%.
What’s driving the market?
The S&P 500 and Dow were trading in record territory on Friday and all three main stock benchmarks were headed for their third consecutive weekly gains.
Bullishness on Wall Street appears to be durable after the S&P 500 on Thursday logged its first record closing high since Sept. 2., with the Dow set to mark its first record finish since Aug. 16 if gains hold through to Friday’s close.
A largely upbeat earnings reporting season has pushed the indexes up this week, though worries over inflation, the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, and troubles for China’s economy remain a nag.
The path higher for technology stocks, however, seems tougher after Snapchat parent Snap Inc.
SNAP,
late Thursday forecast a weaker-than-expected holiday season, mostly blaming data privacy changes by Apple
AAPL,
on iOS devices for an expected revenue drop.
Opinion: Snap points to possibility of Apple causing the long-feared ‘ad-mageddon’
“Apple’s new privacy policy is likely to act as a headwind for not just Snap but for the broader sector, the extent of which will be laid bare next week when some of the other social media behemoths such as Facebook release their quarterly results,” said Victoria Scholar, head of investment at Interactive Investor, in a note to clients.
“Expectations are that Facebook could face similar issues with the potential for a revenue hit of its own,” she said, adding that a more-than-20% drop in Snap shares after those results have led to a 60% retracement of year-to-date gains.
Across the internet sector, shares of Facebook
FB,
fell nearly 4%, Twitter
TWTR,
4.5%, and Google parent Alphabet
GOOGL,
slipped 1%.
Elsewhere in tech, Intel
INTC,
shares fell 9% in premarket trading, after the chip maker’s revenue and data-center sales just missed expectations, while it also forecast a lower-than-expected earnings and gross margins forecast.
Read: Facebook struggles to figure out how many users it actually has
Another factor that may be offering some relief to bulls is news on indebted property developer China Evergrande
6666,
with a government newspaper reporting that the troubled property developer made an overdue $83.5 million payment to foreign bondholders.
Meanwhile, Powell will deliver a speech at a Bank for International Settlements conference at 11 a.m. Eastern Time, which will be watched for any further signs on the pace of tapering of Fed asset purchases and the rate of interest rate increases. The Fed’s next meeting is scheduled for Nov. 2-3.
In politics, President Joe Biden said at CNN town hall meeting Thursday evening that he probably doesn’t have the votes to boost corporate taxes. He also said he may alter or eliminate the filibuster to protect voting rights, and would consider using the National Guard to unclog the supply chains.
In economic reports, IHS Markit’s survey of senior business executives in service-oriented companies rebounded to a three-month high of 58.2 from 54.9 in September. A similar survey of manufacturers slipped to 59.2 from 60.7. Any reading over 50 signals improving conditions.
Which companies are in focus?
- Beyond Meat Inc. shares BYND slid 11% Friday, after the plant-based food company issued a revenue warning for the third quarter, citing a range of issues including the highly transmissible delta variant of the coronavirus.
- Seagate Technology Holdings PLC STX delivered better-than-expected earnings Friday morning and issued a forecast for the current period that exceeded analyst expectations at the midpoint.
- 23andMe Holding Co. ME said Friday it agreed to pay $400 million for Lemonaid Health Inc., the on-demand platform for accessing medical care and pharmacy services, in a bid to add telemedicine and prescription drug delivery services. Its stock was down over 3%.
- Shares of Schlumberger Ltd. slumped 0.9% Friday, after the oil services company reported a third-quarter profit that matched expectations but revenue rose missed, but provided an upbeat outlook oil and gas demand.
- Shares of Honeywell International Inc. HON slumped 3.4% in premarket trading Friday, after the aerospace and building materials company reported third-quarter profit that topped expectations but revenue that came up short, citing “tough challenges” in the supply chain.
How are other assets faring?
- The yield on the 10-year Treasury note TMUBMUSD10Y edged back to 1.66%. Yields and debt prices move in opposite directions.
- The ICE U.S. Dollar Index DXY, a measure of the currency against a basket of six major rivals, edged off 0.2%.
- Oil futures rose, with the U.S. benchmark CL00 trading 0.5% higher at $82.89 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold futures rallied 1.6% to trade at $1,811.40 an ounce.
- The Stoxx Europe 600 SXXP rose 0,7%, while London’s FTSE 100 UKX added 0.5%.
- The Shanghai Composite SHCOMP ended 0.3% lower, while the Hang Seng Index HSI rose 0.4% in Hong Kong and Japan’s Nikkei 225 NIKpicked up 0.3%,
