S&P 500 ends Friday slightly higher, major averages cruise to third week of gains: Live updates

Stocks closed slightly higher, as all three major indexes notched their third straight week of gains.

The S&P 500 added 0.13% to finish the session at 4,514.02. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average ticked 1.81 points higher, or 0.01%, to close at 34,947.28, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.08% to 14,125.48.

— Lisa Kailai Han

November's equity rally has greatly benefited one sector of stocks: technology.

"November's historically strong start led to substantial multiple expansion in Tech, leaving the group trading at an even higher premium to long-term median P/E than it was at the end of C3Q," wrote Barclays analyst Venu Krishna. "Big Tech names are among the few seeing EPS estimates move up, and their share prices are increasing even faster."

As a result, the tech sector as a whole is now trading at nearly a 25% premium and at the 95th percentile of its 10-year range, the analyst added.

— Lisa Kailai Han

Broadly speaking, in November long-only funds added active exposure to Asia, while cutting exposure to Europe, according to Bank of America.

"By global sector, funds added active exposure Consumer Discretionary (+$12.2bn) while reducing active exposure to Tech (-$16.1bn) and Industrials (-$12.8bn)," wrote analyst Nigel Tupper. "Funds remain underweight Asia so positioning could be wind in the sails if inflation in Developed Markets retreats and China supports the economy with stimulus."

Tupper added that long-only funds' largest changes to active stock exposures during the month in the US were adding Tesla and cutting Lululemon Athletica. European funds added HSBC and cut Sandoz Group, while in Japan fund managers added NEC and cut Olympus.

— Lisa Kailai Han

Oil prices bounced back Friday after a selloff pushed U.S. crude into a bear market earlier in the week.

The West Texas Intermediate contract for December rose by $2.99, or 4.10%, to settle $75.89 a barrel, while the Brent contract for January jumped $3.19, or 4.12% to to settle $80.61 a barrel.

The rebound came after oil sold off sharply on Thursday, with U.S. crude falling into a bear market down 22% from a recent September high.

Leo Mariani, senior research analyst at Roth MKM, described Friday's rebound as a "dead cat bounce post speculator liquidation."

-- Spencer Kimball

Company executives are growing less concerned about inflation, if earnings commentary is used a guide.

With third-quarter earnings season nearly complete, some 276 of the SP 500 companies reporting so far cited "inflation" as a significant factor during analyst calls, according to John Butters, senior earnings analyst at FactSet.

That's the lowest number going back to the second quarter of 2021, before inflation spiked to its highest point since the early 1980s. Butters noted that financials and industrials are the sectors that most often discussed the subject.

—Jeff Cox

Five new S&P 500 stocks hit their all-time highs during today's trading session.

These include:

• Hilton Worldwide, since its IPO in December 2013.
• Copart, since its IPO in March 1994.
• Howmet Aerospace, since its Alcoa spinoff in November 2016.
• Motorola Solutions, since it began trading as a separate entity post the Motorola Mobility split
• Linde, since Praxair's spin-off from Union Carbide in June 1992

— Christopher Hayes, Lisa Kailai Han

Investors shouldn't rush to sell a more muted market, according to Vitrus Investment Partners senior managing director Joe Terranova.

"It's a very quiet market today, and generally history will tell me don't sell a quiet market," he told CNBC's "Halftime Report" on Friday. "I still think there's more room to to the upside."

Terranova added that even if the economy slows in 2024 and the majority of market gains have already been realized, "the bias and the inclination is to go in and be a buyer."

— Brian Evans

Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading.

• Gap — The apparel retailer saw shares surge 30% after it posted fiscal third-quarter results late Thursday that beat Wall Street's estimates due to strong sales at Old Navy and improvements at its namesake banner. Adjusted earnings of 59 cents per share smashed analysts' expectations of 19 cents per share, per LSEG. Revenue also beat estimates, coming in at $3.77 billion compared with the $3.6 billion forecast.
• Tenet Healthcare — Shares jumped more than 11% after Tenet Healthcare said it would sell three of its South Carolina hospitals to Novant Health. The transaction is valued at about $2.4 billion.
• Ross Stores — The clothing retailer surged more than 8% following a beat on the top and bottom line in the third quarter. Late Thursday, Ross reported earnings of $1.33 per share on $4.92 billion in revenue, while analysts polled by LSEG forecast earnings of $1.22 per share and $4.85 billion in revenue.

Read the full list here.

— Sarah Min

All the S&P 500 sectors are on pace to end the week in the green. Amid the weekly gains, the real estate sector is on pace for the largest weekly jump of 4.3%.

Alexandria Real Estate Equities, American Tower and Crown Castle are all up more than 8% week to date, and more than 11% for the month.

The real estate sector has been under pressure due to high interest rates in 2023. The sector remains down 3.3% year to date.

— Hakyung Kim

A record amount of options is set to expire today, which could bring some volatility to Friday's trading session.

Goldman Sachs analyst John Marshall estimated that $2.2 trillion of notional options exposure will expire on Friday. This includes $440 billion notional of single stock options.

"While today's monthly options expiration will be the largest November expiration on record, it will be significantly smaller than typical quarterly expirations over the past few years," the analyst wrote. "Consistent with the past few quarters, there is unusually large open interest expiring around the 4000, 4500 and 5000 strikes in the SPX."

— Lisa Kailai Han

Oil prices rose about 3% Friday after a selloff this week that had put U.S. crude in a bear market.

The West Texas Intermediate contract for December rose $2.21, or 3.03%, to $75.11 per barrel, while the Brent contract for January rose 3.2%, or $2.49, to $79.91 a barrel.

Leo Mariana with Roth described Friday's rise as "dead cat bounce post speculator liquidation."

U.S. crude fell into a bear market this week as U.S. inventories rose amid demand worries in China in particular.

WTI sold off rapidly Thursday to settle at $72.90 a barrel, nearly $21 below U.S. crude' Sept. 27 close of $93.68. And Brent threatened to tip into a bear market after settling at $77.42 a barrel yesterday, down nearly 20% from the September close of $96.55 a barrel.

-- Spencer Kimball

The three major indexes are all on pace to post their third straight positive weeks. That's the longest streak for each in months.

The Dow and S&P 500 are tracking for gains of 1.8% and 2%, respectively, on the week. If that holds through market close, it would mark the first time three weeks have finished positively in a row for each index since July.

Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite is slated to end the week 2.1% higher. That would be the first stretch of three straight positive weeks since June, when the technology-heavy index snapped an eight-week winning streak.

— Alex Harring, Chris Hayes

Gap has soared more than 30% as investors cheered its latest financial report, putting the retail stock on pace for its best post-earnings session since at least 2001.

Shares have climbed nearly 31% on Friday, a day after the company published its third-quarter earnings release. Investors appeared pleased with the fact that the retailer beat Wall Street expectations on both lines in the quarter. That seemed to overshadow the company's cautious guidance for the holiday quarter.

With the advance, Gap was trading at its most expensive share price since 2021. Friday's gain also marked the largest Gap's stock has seen in a session directly following an earnings report since at least 2001, according to data from Bespoke Investment Group.

— Alex Harring

Bank of America has come up with unexpected investment outcomes for 2024, which it says could be the basis for some — yet potentially profitable — "angry trades." 

Based on the bank's monthly Global Fund Manager Survey, strategist Michael Hartnett created a list of "contrarian" outcomes and hedging opportunities. Investors' base case for 2024 calls for an economic soft landing, weaker inflation, lower rates, sliding bond yields and a slumping U.S. dollar.

The opposite of these assumptions — the "unexpected" scenarios — are also some of the most painful possible outcomes in 2024, Hartnett noted.

More on the contrarian trades can be found here.

— Hakyung Kim

Stocks rallied this week, propelled by softer-than-expected inflation data and a pause in global tension escalation, according to Wells Fargo.

All 11 sectors in the S&P 500 rallied besides energy, which was weighed down by sliding crude prices.

"The 'don't fight the Fed' mantra and the (likely) sustainable, productivity-driven margin improvements we saw in Q3 are two of the more potent bullish signs for 2024, in our view," wrote analyst Christopher Harvey. "While we continue to favor uber-caps in the near term, we recognize that with the index up 31% YTD (SPX: +17%) some profit-taking/de-grossing should be expected."

— Lisa Kailai Han

Treasury yields retreated to their lowest since September on Friday on continued enthusiasm that the Federal Reserve has enough evidence from the economy to end its rate increases, and can eventually look sometime in 2024 to easing policy.

Yields on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, used to price 30-year mortgages, briefly hit a low of 4.379% the lowest since Sept. 20, when it traded at 4.313%.

Two-year note yields briefly touched 4.796% early Friday, the lowest since Sept. 1, when the two-year yielded 4.76%. Two-years later rebounded to a session high of 4.873%, but were still below Thursday's high of 4.91%.

— Scott Schnipper, Gina Francolla

Stocks opened mixed on Friday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 60 points, or 0.2%, while the S&P 500 gained 0.1%. The Nasdaq Composite, on the other hand, shed 0.1%.

— Lisa Kailai Han

New housing construction and building permits both were stronger than expected in October, the Commerce Department reported Friday.

Privately owned housing starts totaled a seasonally adjusted 1.372 million at an annual rate, a 1.9% increase from September and better than the 1.35 million Dow Jones estimate. The total was 4.2% below the year-ago level.

Building permits totaled 1.487 million, 1.1% above the September level and better than the 1.45 million estimate.

—Jeff Cox

These are some of the stocks making notable moves in premarket trading:

• Alibaba — U.S.-listed shares of the Chinese e-commerce giant slid 3.2%, adding to Thursday's steep losses. The selloff came after Alibaba announced that it would no longer spin off its cloud computing business.
• BJ's Wholesale Club — Shares slipped 4.6% after the retailer refined its expectation for comparable store sales in the fourth quarter amid shifting consumer behavior.
• Ross Stores — Ross shares climbed 6.3% on Friday as investors continued cheering the retailer's better-than-expected financial report.

See more here.

— Alex Harring

Shoppers are going to be spending more money this holiday season because they have more to spend, according to a Citigroup survey.

As the heart of the holiday season approaches, 34% of the approximately 2,800 respondents said they expect to be increasing the dollar level of their gift-giving, while 27% said less. In 2022, the respective responses were split at 30%.

Asked why they expect to be spending more, 46% said they will be "buying more for others," while 45% said "having more money to spend," with the latter category showing the biggest year-over-year increase among potential responses.

Broken down by income, the biggest group expecting to spend more was the $25,000-$74,000 category, with 34% of that group answering affirmatively.

—Jeff Cox

European shares started Friday's trading session slightly higher.

The pan-European Euro Stoxx 600 index was last up by just over 1% mid-morning London time. Financial services stocks led the rise, adding 1.88%, followed by basic resources, which rose 1.79%.

Shares in Volvo Cars tumbled as much as 14% early on Friday as its Chinese parent company Zhejiang Geely Holding Group began a sale of around 100 million shares of the Swedish carmaker, but recovered some losses as the day continued.

— Sophie Kiderlin

Chinese electric car company Xpeng's deliveries exceeded 40,000 units in the third quarter of 2023. Subsequently, the automaker predicts that vehicle deliveries will surge to between 59,500 and 63,500 in the fourth quarter.

"The earnings we announced actually has shown very encouraging signs of renewed growth for the company ... with further growth expected for the current fourth quarter," Brian Gu, vice chairman and president of Xpeng told CNBC's "Street Signs Asia."

He added that Xpeng has seen "meaningful profit margin improvement starting the fourth quarter," thus anticipating a positive margin and stronger cash flow going forward.

Gu also expects Xpeng to improve its profitability and breakeven by 2025.

— Quek Jie Ann

Oil prices were little changed on Friday but were set for the fourth straight week of declines after hitting four month-lows in the previous session.

The price of U.S. crude oil fell 5% on Thursday as inventories rose while slowing industrial activity raised concerns about waning demand.

The West Texas Intermediate inched 0.14% higher at $73 a barrel in Asia trading hours, while the Brent gained 0.11%, to $77.54 a barrel.

U.S. crude and the global benchmark both traded at their lowest level since early July on Thursday.

"The shift lower was likely driven initially by oversupply concerns," Commonwealth Bank of Australia analysts wrote in a note. "Demand concerns added to oversupply narrative, particularly with U.S. continuing jobless claims rising to the highest level in almost two years."

— Shreyashi Sanyal

Shares of Alibaba plunged 9% in early Hong Kong trading on Friday after the Chinese e-commerce giant said it would not proceed with the full spinoff of its cloud group due to U.S. chip export restrictions.

Alibaba shares fell to their lowest level since late November last year, last trading at about 73 Hong Kong dollars. Hong Kong-listed shares of the company have fallen over 13% since the beginning of the year, underperforming the main Hang Seng index's 11.2% YTD decline.

The company reported quarterly earnings on Thursday, with net income of 27.7 billion yuan ($3.8 billion) for the September quarter, below the 29.7 billion yuan expected by analysts.

Revenue met expectations at 224.79 billion yuan, up 9% year over year.

Alibaba also announced it will issue its first-ever annual cash dividend in 2023. Dividends are a way of sharing a portion of profit made by companies with their shareholders.

The company's board approved an annual $0.125 per ordinary share or $1 per American depositary share cash dividend for the fiscal year.

— Shreyashi Sanyal, Ryan Browne

Shares of big retailers tumbled on Thursday, and they dragged the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT) to its worst day in nearly six months.

XRT slid 3.4%, marking its worst day since May 19.

The ETF's decline arrived on the heels of Walmart's fiscal third-quarter report. The big-box retailer beat analysts' expectations on the top and bottom lines, but issued a weak forecast for the year and gave a guarded outlook on consumer spending. Shares slid 8%.

Bath & Body Works, another component of XRT, dropped nearly 7%. The retailer of soaps and candles posted adjusted earnings that beat the Street's forecasts, but came in line on revenue.  Bath & Body Works noted that it had "lower sales expectations for the fiscal year."

-Darla Mercado, Chris Hayes

Lackluster volume and underwhelming margins spelled a very difficult third-quarter earnings season for the transport sector, said Goldman Sachs.

"Our general view is that volumes may be stabilizing, but the sharp bounce off the bottom type of recovery out of a freight recession may be more muted in this cycle owing to uncertainty around the consumer and the pace of shipper re-stocking trends," analyst Jordan Alliger wrote. "As such, we generally prefer those names that can do well in a lower growth volume recovery; including the rails, and parcel who stand to benefit by leveraging potentially more modest freight growth against a relatively high fixed cost base."

Alliger shared six stocks "with idiosyncratic opportunity and reasonable relative valuations" that investors should watch. These include Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern, J.B. Hunt Transport Services, United Parcel Service, FedEX and XPO.

— Lisa Kailai Han, Michael Bloom

Stocks, specifically emerging market equities, will deliver the highest return among major asset classes in the next decade, according to UBS.

"Aggregate earnings growth should be well supported by robust growth in companies driving technological, energy, and healthcare disruption," the bank wrote in its year-ahead outlook.

However, it clarified that equity valuations are likely to be lower due to higher interest rates.

"Global diversification will be important to navigate a deglobalizing world," the bank added. "Emerging market stocks, for example, are trading at sizable discounts to historical levels, and we expect them to deliver the highest rates of return over the next decade."

— Lisa Kailai Han

Stock futures opened little changed on Thursday, after the Dow Jones Industrial Average snapped a four-day winning streak during regular trading.

Dow futures added 25 points, or 0.07%, while S&P 500 futures climbed 0.06%. Nasdaq futures slipped 0.06%.

— Brian Evans