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Stocks in the U.S. were pointed in the right direction, if only mildly so, by Friday’s close, as investors assessed a new quarter of trading and a troublesome bond market recession indicator.
The Dow Jones Industrials sprang back into the green by Friday’s closing bell, picking up 139.92 points to 34,818.27
The S&P 500 was positive 15.45 points to 4,545.86.
The NASDAQ Composite re-strengthened 40.98 points to 14,261.50.
Wall Street is fresh off its first negative quarter in two years, but there were positive signs for investors on Friday.
Materials stocks moved higher, with Freeport-McMoRan about 2%. Health care and energy stocks also outperformed. Edwards Life Sciences
and Illumina rose more than 4% to lead the S&P 500. Walmart rose more than 1%.
U.S.-listed Chinese stocks jumped on Friday after a report that China was considering sharing company audits with foreign regulators.
Bank stocks struggled on Friday after the inversion, with Citigroup losing 2%.
Chip stocks fell again on Friday, with Intel dropping about 4% and Advanced Micro Devices losing 2.3%, amid growing concern about personal computer demand.
Investors were also digesting the official jobs report for March, which showed the U.S. economy adding 431,000 jobs. The result was below the composite estimate of 490,000 but above some of the lower end estimates.
There were some more negative economic readings on Friday, with February construction spending data and March manufacturing data from Institute for Supply Management coming in below expectations.
Treasury prices flopped Friday, with yields leaping to 2.37%, from Thursday’s 2.33%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices dropped 84 cents to $99.44 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices stepped back $26.60 to $1,927.40 U.S. an ounce.
Stocks Mildly Positive Friday, Trying to Come Back from Dreadful Q1
