NEW YORK (AP) โ U.S. stocks held near record levels on Friday, on track to close out another winning week in their impressive rally since Halloween.
The S&P 500 rose 0.3% in midday trading and could end the day above the 5,000 level for the first time after briefly topping it on Thursday. He is headed for his 14th winning week in the last 15.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 75 points, or 0.2%, a day after hitting its latest all-time high. The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.9% to be within 0.8% of its 2021 record as of 11 a.m. ET.
Wall Street's rally began with hopes that cooling inflation would achieve Federal Reserve reduce the pressure by cutting interest rates. Lately, those cuts seem to be coming later than expected because reports continue to show a remarkably strong economy. But that strength in turn has raised companies' earnings expectations, which has supported stocks.
Cloudflare was the latest company to soar after reporting earnings that were higher than analysts expected for its latest quarter. The cloud services company rose 22.2% after saying it had signed its biggest new client and biggest renewal to date, despite an overall economic environment that "remains difficult to predict."
Big tech stocks were doing most of the market's heavy lifting, as they have for more than a year, in part because of the mania around artificial intelligence technology. Nvidia, Microsoft and Amazon were three of the strongest forces driving the S&P 500 after each rose at least 1%.
They helped offset a 2.9% drop for PepsiCo, which reported weaker revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. He said growth is slowing because customers are reverting to snacking and other behaviors they engaged in before the pandemic.
Expedia fell 18% despite also reporting higher-than-expected profits. Analysts pointed to some company forecasts for measures for the first three months of 2024 that point to slower booking growth. The company also announced that a new CEO, Ariane Gorin, will take over in May.
Take-Two Interactive, the publisher of โGrand Theft Autoโ and other video games, sank 8.1% after reporting weaker-than-expected earnings. It also cut its earnings forecast for its fiscal year, which ends at the end of March.
Earnings have largely been better than expected for the big companies in the S&P 500 this reporting season, which passed its midpoint this week.
That has helped boost optimism on Wall Street, but critics say it may have gone too far and driven stocks too expensive.
Traders are investing in some riskier investments at a fast enough pace that a contrarian measure held by Bank of America is now leaning more toward "sell" than "buy," although it is not at compelling levels. The measure tracks how much fear and greed there is in the market, and suggested buying in October, when fear was at a convincingly high level.
In the bond market, Treasury yields were inching higher, but the moves were calmer than earlier in the month, when they jumped as traders pushed their forecasts for rate cuts.
The 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.18% from 4.15% late Thursday.
In foreign stock markets, indices were modestly lower and mixed in Europe. In Asia, several markets were closed for the Lunar New Year holidays.
Tokyo's Nikkei 225 rose 0.1% after hitting a 34-year high earlier in the day.
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AP Business writers Matt Ott and Yuri Kageyama contributed.
