Stocks Rise Slightly to Cap off Record Week
January 17,2020 4:26 PM EST
Stocks rose slightly on Friday as Wall Street wrapped up a solid weekly performance that featured record levels amid strong global economic data and a solid start to the earnings season.
The Dow Jones Industrials cut earlier gains, but were still up 19.21 points to end Friday and the week at 29,329.63
The S&P 500 gained 12.81 points to 3,329.62
The NASDAQ forged ahead 31.81 points to 9,388.94. The major averages all hit record highs on Friday.
For the week, the Dow was up 1.7%, and S&P 500 hiked nearly 2% while the NASDAQ enjoyed a 2.3% gain.
Schlumberger reported Friday quarterly earnings that beat analyst expectations. CSX''s earnings also beat expectations, but the stock slid 0.2%. Big banks such as Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley all reported quarterly figures that exceeded estimate earlier this week.
Corporate earnings have also been better than expected to start off the reporting period. More than 8% of the S&P 500 has reported quarterly results thus far. Of those companies, 72% gave posted better-than-expected earnings.
Chinese industrial data for December came in better than expected, with production rising 6.9% on a year-over-year basis. The overall Chinese economy grew by 6.1% in 2019, matching expectations. To be sure, that is also the slowest growth rate for the Chinese economy since 1990.
In the U.S., housing starts soared nearly 17% in December and reached a 13-year high. That data follows Thursday''s release of better-than-forecast weekly jobless claims and strong business activity numbers from the Philadelphia Federal Reserve.
Prices for the 10-Year U.S. Treasury lost ground, raising yields to 1.83% from Wednesday''s 1.81%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices regained 16 cents to $58.68 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices gained $6.80 to $1,557.30 U.S. an ounce.
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