The S&P 500 closed higher Friday, but investors had to contend with swings between gains and losses as quarterly results from big tech including Amazon and Apple continued dominate market moves.
At 4:00 p.m. ET (20:00 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 40 points, or 0.1%, the S&P 500 gained 0.3%, and the NASDAQ Composite 0.6%.
Amazon jumps, but Apple gives up gains despite solid outlook Investor concerns, made apparent earlier in the week, over the spending by the tech sector were eased, to a certain extent, by healthy results from two of Wall Street’s biggest names, reviving the week’s earlier optimism.
Apple stock gave up gains even after the iPhone maker issued an upbeat outlook, saying it now expects total revenue to rise by 10% to 12% during the holiday quarter. Underpinning these forecasts were expectations that customers would largely opt to upgrade to Apple’s latest version of its flagship device, the iPhone 17.
"We believe that the Street is still underestimating the iPhone 17 cycle that we are seeing...with our estimates of 315 million of 1.5 billion iPhones globally not upgrading their iPhones in the last 4 years," Wedbush said in a recent note.
Speaking to CNBC, CEO Tim Cook said the iPhone 17 would lead to the best December quarter "in the history of the company."
Amazon shares also surged after the e-commerce giant posted quarterly earnings that topped estimates, buoyed by a rebound in retail margins and solid growth at its cloud arm, Amazon Web Services.
Despite being viewed by some observers as a relative laggard in the AI arms race, top-line growth at its Amazon Web Services cloud division -- which has become largely tied to its ambitions in the nascent technology -- came in at 20%, the fastest increase since 2022.
"While the company’s cloud growth rate remains below peers, Amazon appears on a better course to win a growing share of marginal AI cloud revenue which, if durable, could drive further upside, particularly given the accelerated focus on securing power," RBC said in a recent note.
Elsewhere, Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) announced a 10-for-1 stock split, while Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) reported a year-on-year fall in third quarter earnings, as oil prices tumbled due in large part to OPEC+ increasing production.
Chevron (NYSE:CVX), by contrast, posted third-quarter profit which topped estimates, thanks in part to a boost from oil production linked to its acquisition of Hess earlier this year.
Fed’s cautious tone, Trump-Xi talks assessed Investors continued to digest the Federal Reserve’s latest policy meeting.
While the Fed cut rates by 25 basis points this week, Chair Jerome Powell signaled that another cut in December was “not a foregone conclusion,” tempering hopes for aggressive stimulus.
Elsewhere, U.S. President Donald Trump had an "amazing, outstanding" meeting with China’s Xi on Thursday, but offered little clear insight into how Washington and Beijing will temper their trade ties.
The president said he saw a trade deal with China as "pretty soon," and that there were few stumbling blocks between the two. He did not specify when the deal would be signed, but said that he would visit China in April.
