Stocks rose on Friday as investors cheered strong quarterly earnings from Intel along with apparent progress on the U.S.-China trade front.
The S&P 500 climbed 0.4% to 3,022.53 and briefly traded above its record closing high. The broad index also came within inches of its intraday all-time high. The tech sector closed at a record high, rising more than 1% on Friday.
“If higher rates in 2018 and the worsening of the Trade War caused weaker economic data in 2019, so too should much lower rates and softening of rhetoric help the economy and EPS,” Tony Dwyer, chief market strategist at Canaccord Genuity, wrote in a note.
More than 38% of S&P 500 companies posted quarter earnings for the third quarter thus far, according to FactSet. Of those companies, 78% have beaten analyst expectations. This week was one of the busiest of the earnings season, with more than 120 companies reporting.
Markets also got a boost from trade optimism. The U.S. Trade Representative said China and the U.S. were close to finalizing parts of a phase one trade deal.
The major averages were headed for weekly gains. The Dow was up 0.8% for the week. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq were up 1.3% and 1.8%, respectively. - CNBC
The Great Trade Deal news, which adds again to the trillions of dollars of baked in "news" re-baked again and again every few days, is that eventually at the request of a now desperate White House, a phone call was made to Beijing on a Friday, and they answered, so they were able to further discuss the possible partial progress a potential stage 1 of a partial potential "deal" in so far as it might relate to the Chinese lifting some import restrictions on chlorinated chickens and catfish, which no-one else in the world would want to buy anyway and in respect of which I think there might be a limited appetite even in China.
US investors and their quants deserve to ultimately lose every cent they have, given these crazy market reactions. The worse and more unbelievable the news, and the more often it is regurgitated and puked out by CNBC and the like, the more the market rockets to the moon. Any negative dip becomes a reason to double up on the blind optimism the following day. There is no market cynicism, no market testing, no market price discovery left. Just desperation printing optimism.
US investors and their quants deserve to ultimately lose every cent they have, given these crazy market reactions. The worse and more unbelievable the news, and the more often it is regurgitated and puked out by CNBC and the like, the more the market rockets to the moon. Any negative dip becomes a reason to double up on the blind optimism the following day. There is no market cynicism, no market testing, no market price discovery left. Just desperation printing optimism.