The S&P 500 rose on Friday and clinched a third straight winning week amid a red-hot November rally.
The broader index added 0.13% to settle at 4,514.02. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day higher by 0.01%, or 1.81 points, closing at 34,947.28. The Nasdaq Composite crept up by 0.08% to end the session at 14,125.48.
The major averages each notched their third straight positive week. The S&P 500 added 2.2%, while the Nasdaq jumped about 2.4%. The Dow closed the week with a 1.9% advance. This is the first three-week win streak for the Dow and S&P 500 since July, and the first since June for the Nasdaq.
Those gains were sparked by tame U.S. inflation data that gave hope to investors that the Federal Reserve's tough stance on rate policy may be in the rearview mirror.
Stocks have been on a tear this month. In November, the S&P 500 is up 7.6%, while the Dow has a 5.7% gain. The Nasdaq has leapt 9.9%.
"I think the story for the rest this year isn't are we going to finish with a bit of a rally, because it does appear likely that we're going to finish with a bit of a rally," said Scott Ladner, chief investment officer at Horizon Investments.
Instead, Ladner believes the debate will center around the next market leader. "Is it going to be small caps and emerging [markets], kind of like the losers of 2023?" he said. "Are they going to be the things that lead? Or are we going to get a continuation of the mega-cap tech rally that we've had basically all year long?"
Gap shares leapt 30% a day after the company posted better-than-expected results for its fiscal third quarter. Electric vehicle charging network ChargePoint slid 35% after announcing a shake-up in its C-suite late Thursday and cutting its forecast for third-quarter revenue.
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:
— 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.
— 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:
— 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