Dow, S&P 500 close at record highs after strong rebound from sell-off the prior day
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- The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 closed at record highs Friday.
- Stocks bounced back after Thursday's sell-off on global growth worries.
- Investors will start seeing corporate earnings reports rolling in next week.
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US stocks powered to record highs Friday following steep losses prompted by worries about global growth, with the end-of-week gains propelling investors into the start of the new corporate earnings season.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at a record by soaring 470 points, wiping out both its tumble of 260 points on Thursday and what was set to be a decline for the holiday-shortened week. The S&P 500 also advanced to a fresh record.
Here's where US indexes stood at 4:00 p.m. on Friday:
- S&P 500: 4,369.50, up 1.13%
- Dow Jones Industrial Average: 34,869.17, up 1.30% (447.31 points)
- Nasdaq Composite: 14,701.92, up 0.98%
"Yet again all the things that stock markets seemed to worry about yesterday don't matter today - a hawkish Fed, rising Delta cases and the imminent arrival of US earnings season have all been brushed aside," said Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG, in a note.
Stock gains arrived before the start of the second-quarter earnings season next week. Investment banks Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase on Friday were among the Dow's top winners before releasing their reports on Tuesday.
"[With] the bar having been set pretty high thanks to Q1's good numbers stock markets might yet face an uphill struggle in the short-term," said Beauchamp.
Around the markets, Virgin Galactic will be in focus as CEO Richard Branson this Sunday will be aboard a flight on the company's space plane that will carry a crew for the first time. The venture is set to take place days before Jeff Bezos's launch.
Gold rose 0.4% to $1,809 per ounce. Long-dated US Treasury yields edged up, with the 10-year yield at 1.342%.
Oil prices rose. West Texas Intermediate crude picked up 2.3%, to $74.63.
Bitcoin gained 2%, to $33,370.41.