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US stocks jumped on Friday, ending a five-day losing streak for the S&P 500, Dow Jones, and Nasdaq 100.
Risk-on stocks in the consumer discretionary and technology sectors led the market higher.
Stocks hit session highs around the same time Congressman Mike Johnson was reelected to Speaker of the House, signaling that internal fighting within the Republican Party may be more tame than in prior months.
A blog post by Microsoft president Brad Smith, who said that the company expects to spend $80 billion on data centers in 2025 amid an ongoing AI frenzy, also helped boost technology stocks on Friday.
"Not since the invention of electricity has the United States had the opportunity it has today to harness new technology to invigorate the nation's economy," Smith said.
Nuclear stocks surged on a burst of analyst enthusiasm for the sector related to demand from AI data centers. Shares of Constellation Energy Group and Vistra Corp. rose 4% and 8.5%, respectively. Constellation on Thursday announced a $1 billion deal to provide power to more than a dozen government agencies.
Chip titan Nvidia jumped more than 4% in the session.
Investors were encouraged by the December ISM Manufacturing data, which came in at 49.3%, representing a nine-month high. That was well above economist estimates of 48.0%, and above November's reading of 48.4%.
Looking to next week, investors will be focused on several economic updates, including jobless claims, preliminary consumer sentiment, and the US employment report for December.
Here's where US indexes stood at the 4:00 p.m. closing bell on Friday:
Here's what else happened today:
In commodities, bonds, and crypto:
