Wall Street closed Friday (6/21) mixed and soft, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq falling for a second straight day after hitting all-time highs for the week.
Specifically, the S&P 500 lost 0.16% to 5,464.62 points and the Nasdaq fell 0.18% to 17,689.36 points. On the contrary, the Dow Jones recorded an increase of 15.57 points or 0.04% and closed at 39,150.33 points.
All three of Wall Street’s main indexes posted weekly gains, with the S&P 500 briefly surpassing the 5,500-point milestone yesterday for the first time in history. The S&P rose 0.6% for the week, the Nasdaq was almost unchanged, while the Dow Jones jumped 1.45% for its best weekly performance since May.
Nvidia stock fell 3.2% today. On Thursday, it hit an all-time high before closing up more than 3%. Despite this, the chipmaker is still up 155% year-over-year, narrowly surpassing Microsoft as the most valuable company on the planet.
Friday’s session was characterized by high volatility due to triple witching, ie the simultaneous expiration of stock options, stock options and stock index futures (stocks, indices and ETFs).
At the end of the day, doing business in the US hit a 26-month high in June amid a rebound in jobs, while easing price pressures suggest the recent slowdown in inflation may continue. The services PMI rose to 55.1 points this month, above expectations for 53.7 points, while the manufacturing PMI rose to 51.7 points, compared to expectations for a decline of 51 points.
buddy, selling the house fell in May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.11 million units versus expectations of 4.10 million units. Investors are still pricing in a 58% chance of a 25 basis point rate cut in September and expect about two rate cuts this year.
Oil prices fell today, with a weekly increase of 3%. Investors are weighing the possibility of a wider conflict in the Middle East that could hurt crude oil flows. At the same time, declining inventories of crude oil and gasoline in the US provide certainty to the outlook for domestic demand.
Prices fell today despite signs of improvement in US oil demand and a drop in gasoline inventories that helped push crude prices to a seven-week high yesterday. Brent lost 47 cents, or 0.6%, to $85.24 a barrel and US WTI crude lost 56 cents, or 0.7%, to $80.73 a barrel. On a weekly basis, however, both contracts rose about 3% after gains of nearly 4% last week.
Gold lost more than 1% as a stronger dollar and higher bond yields weighed on the precious metal. Specifically, the spot price of gold fell 1.7% to $2,319.95 per ounce. Meanwhile, gold for August delivery fell 1.6% to $2,331.20. Silver rose 3.7% to $29.57 and platinum gained 1.8% to $995.78