Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange
NYSE
The S&P 500 rose to a new high on Friday, putting the broad-market index on track for a weekly gain during the holiday-shortened trading week. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite also hit a new high.
The S&P 500 traded higher by about 0.4% on Friday, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.8%.The Dow Jones Industrial Average hovered just above flat.
The S&P 500’s rally this year has grown to roughly 16%, with the benchmark on pace for its fourth positive week in the last five as investors bet that any economic weakness later this year will be met with a Federal Reserve rate cut. The Nasdaq’s year-to-date gain is 22%.
Widely monitored labor data released Friday morning reflected a 206,000 increase in nonfarm payrolls in June, but a slight uptick in the unemployment rate, which rose to 4.1%. Economists expected the jobless rate to remain steady at 4%.
Treasury yields fell following the report on expectations the uptick in unemployment would spur the Fed to cut interest rates later this year. Investors hiked their bets on a September interest rate cut, with odds of a quarter-point cut increasing to about 77%, up from 64% a week ago, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch Tool.
“On one hand, the downward revisions to prior months and the rise in the unemployment rate raises the odds of a September Fed rate cut — bond markets are certainly celebrating this,” said Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management. “But those same figures cannot help but prompt a twinge of concern about the direction of the U.S. economy. The broad host of economic data all point to a softening — today’s report adds to that picture.”
Tesla rose more than 1%, adding to its whopping week-to-date gain of about 26%, while Apple shares rose roughly 1.6% to a new all-time high. Nvidia lagged following a rare Wall Street downgrade, which cited limited upside for the chipmaker. The stock is still up 3.2% for the week.
All three major indexes are on track to finish the week in the green. The Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 have climbed more than 3.4% and 1.8% in the week, respectively. The Dow has lagged this week, adding around 0.5%. Markets were closed Thursday for Independence Day.
