Dow, Nasdaq close higher Friday, extending rally to a seventh winning week

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher on Friday, with all three major indexes notching seven-straight weeks of gains.

The 30-stock Dow added 56 points, or 0.2%, to close at 37,305.16. The S&P 500 lost 0.01% to finish the session at 4,719.19 while the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.4% to 14,813.92.

— Brian Evans

DocuSign climbed more than 11% in Friday afternoon trading after the Wall Street Journal reported that the e-signature software company tapped advisors about a possible sale. That would mark its best session so far in 2023.

Talks are still in preliminary stages, according to the report. It comes amid a year of underperformance for DocuSign's stock when compared against both the broad S&P 500 or technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite.

If DocuSign's gains hold through the market's close, the stock would notch its best session since Dec. 9, 2022. The stock added 12.4% on that trading day.

Friday's rally helped put the stock up more than 25% on the week. That would be its strongest since November of 2022, when shares finished a week 29.7% higher.

— Alex Harring, Jordan Novet

Citigroup told most of its employees that they can work remotely for the final two weeks of December, CNBC reported earlier Friday. The policy applies to hybrid workers, which make up the majority of the bank's 240,000 employees.

The perk was introduced last year, but circumstances for employees at the company have since changed. Now, employees are more on edge over Citi CEO's Jane Fraser's corporate reorganization, and some are worried over whether their jobs will still exist next year. Fraser's review will be complete by the end of March.

Shares of Citigroup, which is third biggest U.S. bank by assets, slipped 1.8% on Friday.

— Pia Singh, Hugh Son

Oil prices settled lower on Friday, but rose slightly for the week on a weaker dollar and improved 2024 demand outlook after a string of recent losses.

The West Texas Intermediate contract for January fell 15 cents, or .21%, to settle at $71.43 a barrel. The Brent contract for February shed 6 cents, or .08%, to settle at $76.55

Yet U.S. crude and the global benchmark gained less than 1% for the week after prices rallied Thursday on a weaker dollar and the International Energy Agency raising its 2024 demand growth outlook.

It was the first positive note for crude prices after seven weeks of losses.

— Spencer Kimball

Boeing is on pace for its longest weekly positive streak in 18 years.

With just hours left in Friday's session, the airplane maker is poised to finish the trading week more than 8% higher. If that holds, it would mark its seventh winning week in a row — a first of that length since late 2005.

Boeing, which is up more than 3% on Friday, is also slated to notch its eighth straight winning day. The stock last saw a streak that long during a nine-day rally in October 2022.

The company shared leadership appointments over the course of the week. Stephanie Pope was tapped as operations chief, while Brian Moran will lead sustainability.

— Alex Harring, Nick Wells

Communication services stocks have sat out of this week's rally.

The S&P 500 sector is down 0.3% on the week. It's not only the worst performer of the 11 that comprise the broad index, but is also the only one not on track for gains.

By comparison, utilities is the next worst performer, but has still climbed more than 1% on the week. The index as a whole is tracking to end the week about 2.5% higher.

Paramount weighed on the sector this week with a drop of nearly 4%. Alphabet was the next worst performer, shedding more than 2%. Verizon and AT&T also dragged with slides of nearly 2% each.

Those losses outweighed notable gains seen elsewhere in the sector. Live Nation and Warner Bros. Discovery, the two biggest gainers this week, rallied more than 8% each.

— Alex Harring

Here's how the major averages are faring this week:

• The S&P 500 is up about 2.6%.
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average has advanced nearly 2.9%. The index was last at 37,278.69, climbing above its record-high close on Wednesday.
• The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite has gained just above 2.9%.

The three stock indexes are set to close out their seventh straight weekly gain.

— Pia Singh

These are the stocks moving the most in midday trading:

• Scholastic — Shares tumbled about 12% after the publisher and distributor of children's books reported a 4% year-over-year decline in revenue for the fiscal second quarter, citing headwinds in the retail market.
• Roku — Shares of the streaming media company dropped nearly 4% after MoffettNathanson downgraded them to sell from neutral.
• Costco — The wholesale retailer's stock jumped more than 3% after posting fiscal first-quarter results that topped Wall Street's expectations.

Read the full list of stocks moving here.

— Lisa Kailai Han

Hedge funds are coming off their worst two-day stretch since 2020, Bank of America traders noted, as stocks roared higher following the Fed indicating three rate cuts could take place next year.

"We view this sort of price action as degrossing/short capitulation from the fundamental equity community, especially those running low nets," BofA traders said.

— Fred Imbert

The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened lower on Friday, while the index was still on track to notch a seventh-straight positive week.

The 30-stock Dow fell 57 points, or 0.1%. The S&P 500 ticked down 0.1% while the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.2%.

— Brian Evans

New York Federal Reserve President John Williams said Friday on CNBC's "Squawk Box" that the central bank isn’t "really talking about rate cuts right now." Instead, "We're very focused on the question in front of us, which as chair Powell said... is, have we gotten monetary policy to sufficiently restrictive stance in order to ensure the inflation comes back down to 2%? That's the question in front of us."

Traders are betting that the central bank will cut rates more than three times, according to fed funds futures trading at the CME. Futures markets indicate that the Fed could start cutting rates as soon as March.

"I just think it's just premature to be even thinking about that," Williams said, when asked about futures pricing for a rate cut in March. Williams said that if the trend of lower inflation were to reverse, the central bank stands ready to tighten policy again.

— Yun Li, Scott Schnipper

These are some of the stocks on the move before the bell:

• Costco Wholesale — Costco shares added 2.7% after the wholesale retailer posted quarterly numbers that beat analyst expectations. The company also announced a special dividend of $15 per share.
• Solar stocks — A handful of solar stocks rose on Friday after Jefferies initiated coverage with buy ratings. First Solar jumped 3.5%, while Sunrun and Enphase Energy popped 4.4% and 5.1%, respectively.

Read the full list of companies moving before the bell here.

— Samantha Subin

Friday could be a volatile trading session for stocks thanks to the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 rebalancing their indexes. The process will see Uber join the S&P 500, while DoorDash and MongoDB will be added to the Nasdaq-100.

A looming concern that could be reflected in the process is investors considering concentration risks, as well as worry that some stocks may have an oversized weighting going into their respective indexes.

— Brian Evans

This week marked a major shift for the stock market that could propel share prices even higher, according to Adam Crisafulli of Vital Knowledge.

"Stocks are generally extending their gains as investors embrace the new paradigm whereby monetary policy globally finally undergoes a pivot following one of the most synchronized and aggressive tightening campaigns in history," Crisafulli wrote.

"Shares may be near-term overbought, but the evolution in policy will be a powerful tailwind for quarters to come," he added.

— Fred Imbert

European markets were modestly higher on Friday, on course to round out a positive week after a deluge of key policy decisions from major central banks.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 index was up 0.3% in early trade, with mining stocks adding 1.4% to lead gains while chemicals dropped 0.9%.

The European blue chip index closed Thursday's trade up 0.9% having earlier hit its highest point since January 2022.

- Elliot Smith

China reported that industrial output in November expanded at the fastest pace since February last year, but retail sales growth missed expectations — a sign the world's second-largest economy is still going through a patchy recovery.

Industrial output grew 6.6% in November from a year earlier, according to the National Bureau of Statistics Friday. This outpaced expectations for 5.6% in a Reuters poll and follows a 4.6% rise in October.

Retail sales climbed 10.1% in November from a year ago, the fastest pace of growth since May. Analysts had expected a 12.5% spike following a low base in 2022. Retail sales rose 7.6% in October.

Fixed asset investment in urban areas cumulatively grew 2.9% in the first 11 months of the year, compared with expectations for 3% growth. China's urban unemployment rate stayed at 5% in November.

For more, please read the full story.

— Clement Tan

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index jumped 3.19% on Friday, leading gains among major Asian benchmarks even as China's November economic data showed an uneven recovery.

Basic materials stocks led the climb, but the top gainer on the index was e-commerce company JD.com, whose shares saw an almost 10% jump.

Other names on the top gainers list include property developer Longfor Group, Xinyi Solar Holdings, the largest solar cover glass producer in the world, and hotpot chain Haidilao.

— Lim Hui Jie

Japan's manufacturing activity contracted in December for the seventh straight month, according to a private survey.

A flash reading of the au Jibun Bank Japan manufacturing purchasing managers' index shrank to 47.7 in December from 48.3 in November, signaling the quickest deterioration in manufacturing business conditions for ten months.

A reading below 50 indicates contraction.

The au Jibun Bank flash services PMI, however, was 52.0 in December versus 50.8 in November, the fastest gain in the three months.

The survey said services growth remained softer than the average seen over 2023 as a whole. Total new business expanded at a slightly quicker but mild pace in December, despite a slight drop in new export sales.

— Shreyashi Sanyal

China's central bank announced that it has conducted a reverse repurchase operation of 50 billion yuan ($7.06 billion) as well as injecting 1.45 trillion yuan of medium-term facility loans, so as to "maintain reasonable and sufficient liquidity in the banking system."

The rate on the medium-term facility loans were held at 2.5%, while the rate for the seven day reverse repurchases were also maintained at 1.8%.

Reuters reported that 650 billion yuan worth of MLF loans are set to expire this month, which means that the operation results in a net 800 billion yuan fresh fund injection into the banking system.

—Lim Hui Jie

Fewer investors are pessimistic about the outlook for stocks over the next six months than at any time since 2017, according to the latest weekly survey from the American Association of Individual Investors.

The percentage of bearish investors tumbled to just 19.3% in the latest week, down from 27.4% last week and an historical average of 31.0%.

Bullish investors grew to 51.3%, the most since mid-July and up from 47.3% last week and an historical average of 37.5%. "Optimism is now unusually high," AAII said, noting that bullishness is above its historical average for a sixth straight week and 7th week in 10.

These sentiment levels are bad news for contrarian investors who might interpret them as meaning the stock market is overbought and that investors are closer to being done buying than they are being done selling.

— Scott Schnipper

Here are the biggest moves after hours:

• Scholastic — Shares dropped 11% after Scholastic reported second-quarter revenue that fell from the year-ago period. Revenue came in at $562.6 million, roughly 4% lower than the $587.9 million one year ago.
• Quanex Building Products — Shares dropped nearly 7% after Quanex posted fourth-quarter adjusted earnings of 95 cents per share, topping the FactSet consensus estimate of 70 cents per share. Revenue came in at $295.5 million, more than the $291.0 million estimated by analysts polled by FactSet.

— Sarah Min

Stock futures open lower Thursday night.

Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell by 33 points, or 0.09%. S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures dipped 0.13% and 0.08%, respectively.

— Sarah Min