S&P 500 rises on Friday to close out big first half, Nasdaq posts best start to a year in 4 decades: Live updates

Stocks closed higher on Friday, with all the major average notching gains for the week, month, quarter and first half of the year.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 285.18 points, or 0.84%, to close at 34,407.60. The S&P 500 climbed 1.23% to end at 4,450.38, and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 1.45% to settle at 13,787.92.

The Nasdaq closed out its best start to the year since 1983. The S&P posted its best first half since 2019.

— Samantha Subin

UBS thinks Meta Platforms will continue to climb thanks to stronger ad revenue.

The firm reiterated the Facebook-parent company as a top pick across its internet coverage in a Thursday note.

"The deep performance-centric mindset continues with a high bar for brand, which is more 'nice to have' in this macro," analyst Lloyd Walmsley said. He also pointed to the company's Reels segment which is "ramping with room on ad load."

— Brian Evans

If investors wanted to take some money off the table after a big first half rally for stocks, there's little evidence of it in ETF flows.

Several of the biggest broad-market equity funds saw big inflows over the past week, according to FactSet. That includes the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) and the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ), which investors have actually been avoiding for most of the year despite the rally for tech stocks.

Read more about fund flows on CNBC Pro.

— Jesse Pound

Daiwa turned bullish on Nvidia, saying its leadership in the artificial intelligence space will be hard to overcome.

Analyst Louis Miscioscia upgraded his view of the stock to overweight from neutral and raised his target price per share to $475 from $408. Miscioscia's new target implies he thinks shares could rally 16.4% over the next year from where they finished Thursday's session.

"We have a higher level of confidence that Nvidia's commanding position for AI, and Generative AI, will be difficult to replicate near term by the competitors such as AMD, Intel and others," he said in a note to clients Thursday.

Nvidia was up nearly 4% on Friday. The stock has skyrocketed more than 190% since the start of the year as a major beneficiary of booming market excitement around AI.

— Alex Harring

All major S&P 500 sectors may be on track to finish June on a positive note, but those gains have failed to help the financials, utilities, healthcare and energy sectors recoup their losses for the first half.

The financials sector is down 1.2% this year and on track to post a gain of 5.1% and 6.8%, respectively, for the quarter and month. The utilities sector has experienced the largest drop in 2023, down 7.1%. For the quarter it is slated to lose 3.2%, but on track for 1.5% gain in June.

Other first-half losers sectors include health care and energy, down about 2.2% and 6.9%, respectively. Utilities is also headed for the biggest quarterly loss among the 11 sectors, down 3.3%.

Boosted by chipmakers and some technology behemoths, the information technology sector is on pace for the biggest first-half gain, up 42% gain. The sector is poised to finish the quarter 16.9% higher, with 6.5% gain for June.

The consumer discretionary and communications services sectors are also poised for a strong finish, up 32.5% and 35.8% for the year. Consumer discretionary is up 12.1% this month, the largest gain across sectors.

— Samantha Subin

Maybe the much hoped-for broadening out of the stock market rally is already happening.

Twenty-six of the 67 new 52-week highs in the S&P 500 on Friday consist of industrial stocks, accounting for 39% of the day's list, far and away more than any other sector. Among the 26 industrials are:

• Masco, highest since May 2022
• Otis Worldwide, highest since September 2021
• PACCAR, an all-time high back to its 1971 IPO
• Parker-Hannifin, reaching an all-time high back to 1964 IPO
• Ingersoll Rand, hitting an all-time high

Trailing industrials in accounting for the greatest percentage of new highs on Friday are financials (18%), technology (15%), health care (13%), consumer discretionary (7%), materials (6%) and staples (2%).

— Scott Schnipper, Christopher Hayes

Artificial intelligence will help power Roblox higher, according to Bank of America.

The video-game maker discussed some of its current AI uses at an investor event Wednesday.

"We now believe Roblox's AI tools will significantly widen the creator funnel, which should ultimately fortify Roblox's most valuable asset: the UGC creator community," analyst Omar Dessouky wrote in a note Thursday. He called AI a "clear long-term tailwind" for the video-game maker.

Shares were up more than 4% Friday and 42% year to date.

— Michelle Fox

Jefferies is getting more bullish on shares of Snowflake after the company unveiled a slew of AI-related products at its latest conference in Las Vegas.

"Snowflake is an early beneficiary of the cloud data warehousing space, and we see rapid growth sustainability on rising penetration among enterprises and potential expansion in the product offering to address adjacent workloads," wrote analyst Brent Thill in a Thursday note to clients.

He called Snowflake a dominant data cloud company with "AI tailwinds," highlighting its "best-in-class" growth rates and its potential for profitability expansion.

Despite holding one of the "richest valuation[s]" in Jefferies coverage, Thill views Snowflake as a prime way to play the drive for data. He upped the firm's price target to $205 from $180 a share, reflecting about 17% upside from Thursday's close. Shares have gained about 25% so far this year.

"Numbers have been reset twice - down from 47% to now 34%, which we believe is achievable," Thill added.

— Samantha Subin

In recent years, the final trading day of June has been a positive one for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite. According to the Stock Trader's Almanac, both indexes were higher in nine of the past 12 final trading days in June.

— Sarah Min, Scott Schnipper

The major averages reached session highs in early afternoon trading, with the Dow Jones Industrial climbing more than 300 points, or about 0.9%.

Meanwhile, the S&P 500 rally was broad-based, with a majority of names higher. There were 434 advancers in the broader index, and 69 names declining.

— Sarah Min

While Wall Street has pulled off a strong first half to the year positive sentiment is largely responsible for stocks climbing higher which is also vulnerable to a slight bump evolving into a major headwind, according to UBS director of floor operations Art Cashin.

"...because the market sentiment is so great, a bump in the road could turn out to be a landmine," Cashin told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" on Friday. "I think sentiment is taking over and people feel the train is leaving the station and they're buying wildly."

Cashin pointed to the central bank potentially keeping benchmark interest rates higher for longer as a so-called "landmine" that could harm market sentiment.

— Brian Evans

Check out some of the companies making headlines in midday trading Friday.

Apple — Shares of the tech giant gained more than 1%, bringing the company's market value to more than $3 trillion, a milestone first achieved in January 2022. Citi also slapped a $240 price target on the stock, the highest on the Street.

Coinbase – Shares of the crypto services company slid 4% midday, pressured by a dip in the bitcoin price that followed a Wall Street Journal that the SEC is calling recent bitcoin ETF filings inadequate. Coinbase is the crypto custody partner for BlackRock, whose bitcoin ETF filing earlier this month set off a wave of followers and a rally in the price of bitcoin and Coinbase shares.

Pacific Biosciences — The biotech stock popped 5.8% after Goldman Sachs initiated coverage at a buy, noting the company could be at an inflection point with a new sequencing instrument.

Read the full list here.

— Brian Evans

Coinbase shares slid nearly 4% midday, pressured by a dip in the bitcoin price.

The moves came after the Wall Street Journal reported that the SEC is calling recent bitcoin ETF filings, like those from BlackRock and Fidelity, inadequate.

Coinbase is the crypto custody partner for BlackRock, whose bitcoin ETF filing earlier this month set off a wave of followers and a rally in the price of bitcoin and Coinbase shares.

For more read our full story here.

— Tanaya Macheel

Weakening earnings estimates for the broader market could spell some trouble ahead for the S&P 500, according to Barclays.

"SPX implied volatility has fallen to historically cheap levels relative to sector vol, suggesting fundamentals are in the hot seat as we head into the summer months," wrote equity strategist Venu Krishna in a Friday note. "This is a potential risk for equities as EPS estimates continue to fall for most of the S&P 500."

Since the start of the year, stocks tied to artificial intelligence seemed to have helped lift the broader market. But this narrowness is unlikely to continue "standing in for fundamentals" in the second half, Krishna said, noting that this setup often foreshadows a near-term market pullback.

— Samantha Subin

Optimism among individual investors toward stocks over the next six months fell in the latest weekly survey by the American Association of Individual Investors, but remained above the historic average for a fourth consecutive week.

Pessimism declined while neutral sentiment rose.

Bullish opinion fell to 41.9% from 42.9% last week, above an historic average of 37.5%, while bearish sentiment eased to 27.5% from 27.8% the prior week (still below an historic average of 31.0%). Neutral sentiment rose to 30.6% from 29.4% vs an historic average of 31.5%.

— Scott Schnipper

The recent mark rally could be nearing a period of capped upside, according to Vital Knowledge's Adam Crisafulli.

 "We think intensifying disinflationary forces will stay a tailwind for now, but our ~4550 ceiling is just around the corner, which means the risk/reward for the overall index is growing rapidly less appealing," he wrote in a Friday note.

— Samantha Subin

Pacific Biosciences of California rose more than 6% after Goldman Sachs said the stock was worth buying.

Analyst Matthew Sykes initiated coverage of the company, which creates sequencing solutions that can help solve problems with genetic complexity, at a buy rating. His $17 upside implies shares could rally nearly 30% in the next year.

Sykes said Pacific Biosciences' launch of the Revio long-read instrument launch is "transformative" and "represents the most credible, long term competitive challenge" to Illumina, the previously established leader in short-read sequencing. Long-read sequencing is considered better but more expensive than short term, and lingering concerns about accuracy have restrained adoption to an extent, he said.

By 2026, he estimates the total addressable market for sequencing to be slightly over $11 billion, with Pacific Biosciences winning 5% of the market.

"We believe the market is at an inflection point for long read sequencing to become a more ubiquitous tool for the overall sequencing market," Sykes said.

— Alex Harring

Citi analyst Asiya Merchant initiated coverage of Dell Technologies with a buy rating, as well as a $60 price target, citing the technology company's leadership in commercial PCs that's "poised for recovery."

"We like Dell's leading share in commercial PCs, return to normalized FCF margins which could drive an uptick in shareholder returns, reduction in core debt leverage, along with the potential for inclusion in the SP500 index an incremental catalyst," Merchant said to clients in a Thursday note. "Estimates have also been significantly de-risked given a conservative guide."

Dell shares rose about 2% on Friday.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read the full story here.

— Sarah Min

Technology stocks surged on Friday, lifting the Nasdaq Composite by 1.4% during early morning trading as the tech-heavy index barreled toward its best first half since 1983.

Some of the biggest gainers included Nvidia, Netflix and Airbnb, last up more than 3% each. Apple rose more than 1% to hit a $3 trillion market cap on a price target increase from Citi. Other big technology stocks, including Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft and Meta Platforms each rose about 2%.

Outside of the tech giants, semiconductor and software stocks moved higher, with Atlassian, Datadog and Zscaler gaining about 3% each. Advanced Micro Devices and Marvell Technology added 2%.

The jump in technology stocks boosted the S&P 500 information technology sector by 1.8%. The communication services and consumer discretionary sectors added 1.4% and 1.5%, respectively.

— Samantha Subin

Consumer confidence accelerated in June while inflation expectations hit their lowest in more than two years, according to the closely watched University of Michigan sentiment survey released Friday.

The headline index rose to 64.4 for the month, up from 59.2 in May and better than the 63.9 Dow Jones estimate.

At the same time, the expected outlook for inflation a year from now plunged to 3.3%, down from 4.2% and good for the lowest reading since March 2021.

— Jeff Cox

Apple rose more than 1%, bringing its market value to more than $3 trillion. The stock has been on fire this year, rallying more than 48%. On Thursday, Citi slapped a Street high price target of $240 per share.

— Fred Imbert

May personal consumption expenditure data showed inflation is "stubborn but we're making progress," according to Gina Bolvin, president of Bolvin Wealth Management.

Bolvin also pointed to strong homebuilding data, which she said should signal downward pressure coming to rents in the coming months. And lower rents could, in turn, help bring inflation closer to the Federal Reserve's 2% target.

"While it will take some time to get to the Fed's two percent target, we're making progress," Bolvin said.

"Resilience will continue to trump recession," she added. "While we may see a healthy correction, this bull market will continue."

— Alex Harring

Stocks opened higher on Friday as Wall Street headed for a strong end to the first half of 2023.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 200 points, or 0.6%. The S&P 500 added 0.8% and the Nasdaq Composite surged 1%.

— Samantha Subin

Analysts remain bullish on Nike's direct-to-consumer strategy and brand momentum, even after the sports apparel giant's disappointing earnings results.

Nike shares slid 3% in the premarket after the sports apparel giant missed earnings expectations for the first time in three years because of lower margins. However, Nike did exceed revenue forecasts.

Goldman Sachs' Kate McShane maintained her buy rating on the stock, and actually raised her 12-month price target, saying she walked away from the results with her "constructive view intact." Her $145 price target implies 27% upside from Thursday's close.

"While near-term growth and margins are more challenged than our expectations on wholesale shipment timing / liquidation sales / transitory cost headwinds / SG&A investments, we believe this quarter continued to deliver several key proofpoints of the bull case," McShane wrote Thursday.

— Sarah Min

The latest inflation data showed prices cool in May, according to a Commerce Department report released Friday.

The personal consumption expenditures price index increased 0.3% for the month when excluding food and energy, in line with the Dow Jones estimate. That's also below the 0.4% increase see in April.

On a year over year basis, the closely watched number by the Federal Reserve increased 4.6% from a year ago, below the 4.7% expected by economists.

When including the volatile food and energy components, inflation was considerably softer — up just 0.1% on the month and 3.8% from a year ago. Those were down respectively from the 0.4% and 4.3% increases reported for April.

— Jeff Cox, Samantha Subin

Jefferies analyst David Katz upgraded this cruise line company to buy from hold, saying it's benefiting from a number of changes that improves its outlook.

"The leadership change and the supply and demand recovery, and the resulting capital pivot, drive a significant shift from debt to equity value within the EV and should position the shares as more broadly investable, which could progress over several years," Katz wrote on Friday.

— Sarah Min

Bank of America analyst Julien Dumoulin-Smith hiked his price target on this solar stock, and reiterated a buy rating, saying it's in a "healthy" position after its recent selloff. In fact, it can surge more than 50%.

"The Street expects a roughly flat 2023 for US resi, which is consistent with communications from SEDG mgmt., but coming out of Intersolar Munich (renewable industry conference), investors are weary of the European growth story, following the collapse in polysilicon prices," Dumoulin-Smith wrote on Friday.

"We argue these concerns seem misplaced, and point to EBITDA acceleration in 2H23, driven by compounding operating leverage and further C&I and storage deployments," Dumoulin-Smith added.

— Sarah Min

Apple shares rose 0.8% before the bell, putting the iPhone maker on track to open above a $3 trillion market cap.

The move came after Citi hiked its price target to a new Street-high of $240 on Thursday, suggesting shares could rally another 27%, building on a roughly 46% gain so far this year.

"The Street is underestimating continued gross margin expansion," wrote analyst Atif Malik, who assumed coverage of technology company.

— Samantha Subin

U.S. Treasury yields climbed on Friday as investors braced themselves for the release of the latest personal consumption expenditure price index, which is the Fed's preferred inflation gauge. It could therefore impact the central bank's next interest policy moves.

At 4 a.m. ET, the 10-year Treasury yield was up by over three basis points to 3.8858%. The 2-year Treasury yield was also last trading more than four basis points higher at 4.9268%.

Yields and prices move in opposite directions and one basis point equals 0.01%.

— Sophie Kiderlin

European equity markets opened in slightly positive territory Friday, after making marginal gains throughout the week, with investors keeping an eye on upcoming euro zone inflation data.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 index was up 0.3% as trading started, with most sectors tentatively in positive territory. Mining stocks and oil and gas led gains, each with a 0.8% uptick, while tech stocks dropped 0.7%.

— Hannah Ward-Glenton

Large Asia-Pacific banks with $300 billion in assets or more hold strong capital buffers amid a slowing global economy, S&P Global Market Intelligence said.

China Merchants Bank, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp., DBS Group Holdings, HSBC and KB Financial Group were among the banks with common equity tier 1 ratios above regulatory requirement levels for the past three fiscal years.

The CET1 ratio compares a bank's capital against its assets, covering liquid bank holdings such as cash and stock.

The Basel III accord stipulates the minimum total capital ratio that a bank must maintain is 8% of its risk-weighted assets, with a minimum tier 1 capital ratio of 6%. It is set by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, a consortium of central banks from 28 countries.

— Jihye Lee

China's factory activity data stayed in contraction territory for the month of June, according to the National Bureau of Statistics' latest purchasing managers' index reading.

The NBS manufacturing PMI came in at 49, below the 50-mark that separates contraction and growth for the third consecutive month.

The PMI reading in May stood at 48.8, the lowest since December. The Chinese yuan weakened to 7.26 against the U.S. dollar.

— Jihye Lee

The International Monetary Fund and Pakistan have reached a staff-level agreement on a $3 billion loan, averting the risk of sovereign default.

The new financing engagement, referred to as a Stand by Arrangement (SBA), provides short-term financial assistance to countries facing balance of payments problems.

The agreement is subject to approval by the IMF's Executive Board, which is expected to consider the request by mid-July.

"The new SBA will support the authorities' immediate efforts to stabilize the economy from recent external shocks, preserve macroeconomic stability and provide a framework for financing from multilateral and bilateral partners," the IMF said in a release.

IMF Mission Chief Nathan Porter said Pakistan's economy has "faced several external shocks such as the catastrophic floods in 2022 that impacted the lives of millions of Pakistanis and an international commodity price spike in the wake of Russia's war in Ukraine."

The latest agreement comes as the 2019 extended fund facility-supported program is slated to expire at the end of this month.

— Jihye Lee

The Federal Reserve's favorite inflation gauge — the personal consumption expenditures price index — will be out on Friday morning.

Economists polled by Dow Jones are calling for core PCE, which excludes volatile energy and food prices, to have gained 0.3% on a monthly basis in May and to have added 4.7% year over year. In April, the gauge ticked higher by 0.4% from the prior month and gained 4.7% on an annualized basis.

St. Louis Fed President Jim Bullard has pointed to three reasons behind why the Federal Open Market Committee favors PCE over the consumer price index. First, PCE accounts for substitutions that people make as they substitute some goods and services for others. Second, the PCE has more comprehensive coverage of goods and services. Finally, historical PCE data can be revised.

-Darla Mercado

Nike reported mixed fiscal fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday, as lower margins weighed on profits. Shares slid more than 4% in extended trading.

The sneaker giant posted earnings of 66 cents per share for the quarter, compared to estimates of 67 cents per share, according to Refinitiv. Revenue of $12.83 billion topped analysts' estimates of $12.59 billion.

Nike's margins fell again this quarter, this time by 1.4 percentage points to 43.6%. The company attributed the drop to higher product input costs, elevated freight and logistics costs, an uptick in promotions and unfavorable currency exchange rates.

— Gabrielle Fonrouge, Tanaya Macheel

Stock futures were little changed to begin trading on Thursday evening.

Dow Jones Industrial Average futures inched lower by 30 points, or 0.09%. S&P 500 futures ticked lower by 0.03% and Nasdaq 100 futures were just above the flat line.

In regular trading the Dow and S&P finished higher, while the Nasdaq Composite closed flat. All three of the major averages are on pace for a positive week and a winning month.

— Tanaya Macheel