NEW YORK: The Nasdaq rallied to a fresh intraday record on Friday, lifted by megacaps as Treasury yields slipped from the week’s high while investors looked ahead to quarterly results from some of Wall Street’s biggest companies next week.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose slightly on the day to 4.218%, but eased off the 4.26% high touched earlier in the week.
The so-called “Magnificent Seven” group of rate-sensitive stocks leapt. Chip heavyweight Nvidia gained 2.1%, briefly overtaking Apple as the world’s most valuable company by stock market value.
Tesla’s shares rose 2.6%, adding to a 22% surge in the previous session, Apple gained 0.9% and Microsoft was up 1.3%.
However, a 1.7% loss in Goldman Sachs and a 2.4% fall in McDonald’s as the fast-food chain copes with an E. coli outbreak linked to its hamburgers, dragged the Dow.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 81.79 points, or 0.19%, to 42,292.57, the S&P 500 gained 29.68 points, or 0.51%, to 5,839.54 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 224.76 points, or 1.22%, to 18,640.24.
The Nasdaq’s gains took it into positive territory for the week, though the benchmark S&P 500 and the blue-chip Dow looked set to snap six-week winning streaks. The Nasdaq was on track to rise 1.2%, the S&P 500 to fall 0.4%, and the Dow set to lose 2.3%.
Equities have been unsettled this week by a rapid rise in yields as Fed rate-cut bets unraveled on expectations of a stronger economic outlook.
“The Fed perhaps got a little too dovish ahead of the data ... the growth and inflation numbers don’t necessarily justify easing behavior,” said Arnim Holzer, global macro strategist at EAB Investment Group.
Investors are still pricing in another 25-basis-point rate cut at the US Federal Reserve’s November meeting and about two rate cuts by the end of the year, according to LSEG data.
The week starting Oct. 28, the final stretch before the Nov. 5 US presidential election, promises to be crucial for Wall Street. This is when results from megacap technology firms including Alphabet, Apple and Microsoft are also due, along with the nonfarm payrolls report for October.
“With such high valuations ... at this point, these high growth tech companies need to confirm both AI (artificial intelligence) growth and execution - they need to show and deliver,” Holzer said.
Meanwhile, Capri Holdings slumped 47.3% after a US judge blocked a pending merger between the company and handbag maker Tapestry. Shares of Tapestry rose 14.3%.
Regional lender New York Community Bancorp dropped 6.9% after reporting its fourth straight quarter of loss, primarily due to its commercial real estate loans.
Continued uncertainty around the US election has also made investors cautious, though markets have started pricing in a second Donald Trump administration in recent weeks.
The information technology sector led gains, while financials were the biggest decliner.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.24-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and by a 1.5-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P 500 posted 30 new 52-week highs and one new low, while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 70 new highs and 61 new lows.
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