Yahoo Finance Stock Market News for Feb 26, 2024
U.S. stocks closed mostly higher on Friday, with the S&P 500 closing at a fresh record high, led by an artificial intelligence stocks rally. However, the tech-heavy Nasdaq ended in negative territory.
How Did The Benchmarks Perform?
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) rose 0.2% or 62.42 points to end at 39,131.53 points.
The S&P 500 climbed less than 0.1% or 1.77 points, to finish at 5,088.80 points, hitting a new all-time closing high. Utilities and materials were the biggest gainers.
The Utilities Select Sector SPDR (XLU) gained 0.7%, while the Materials Select Sector SPDR (XLB) rose 0.6%. Seven of the 11 sectors of the benchmark index ended in positive territory.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 0.3% or 44.80 points to close at 15,996.82 points.
The fear-gauge CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) was down 5.53% to 13.75. A total of 10.64 billion shares were traded on Friday, lower than the last 20-session average of 11.6 billion.
NVIDIA Drives Market Rally
The upbeat sentiment in Wall Street continued on Friday following blowout earnings from NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) after the closing bell on Wednesday.
Shares of NVIDIA ended 0.4% higher on Friday after soaring 16.4% on Thursday to close at a record high. Nvidia sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
The company also traded above $2 trillion in market cap for the first time on Friday. Surging demand for Nvidia’s artificial intelligence chips and a surge in its market valuation are also boosting the broader market.
Also, the S&P 500 hit a new all-time high on Friday after recording its biggest daily percentage gain since Jan 6.
However, except for NVIDIA and Amazon.com, Inc (AMZN) all major tech companies including Apple, Inc. (AAPL) and Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) declined on Friday.
The earnings season is also coming to a close but investors are still closely watching the quarterly results of some big companies.
The coming week will see the release of a spate of economic data, including the final estimate of the gross domestic product in the fourth quarter of 2023 and the personal consumption expenditure (PCE) inflation reading for January.
Weekly Roundup
For the week, all three major indexes ended in the green. The Dow ended 1.3% higher for the week. The S&P 500 gained 1.7% while the Nasdaq closed the week 1.4% higher.
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