Wall Street closes week with moderate gains led by tech shares
|Major equity indexes in the U.S. were able to close the week on a positive note as the heavy sell-off seen in the financials were offset by the solid gains witnessed in tech shares.
Although today's reports from big financial firms showed higher-than-expected EPS' (Earnings Per Share) and second quarter earnings, their shares failed to take advantage as the net interest income for 2017 is expected to be lower than initially thought. The S&P 500 financial index .SPSY lost 0.5% to close the day at 412.90. Commenting on today's price action, "the bar for earnings is higher this time around, especially after the phenomenal (profit) growth we saw in the first quarter. So companies that miss expectations or guide down will be overly punished," Michael Scanlon, portfolio manager at Manulife Asset Management, told Reuters.
On the other hand, the S&P 500 technology index .SPLRCT added 1% to finish its sixth straight session with gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 84.65 points, or 0.4%, to 21,637.74, the S&P 500 added 10.5 points, or 0.43%, to 2,459.98 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 38.03 points, or 0.63%, to 6,321.46.
Next week earning reports will continue to dominate the movements in the equity indexes with Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley as the next heavy-weights to report their results.
Headlines from the U.S. session:
- US Industrial Production: Slow and steady improvement - Wells Fargo
- US: Weakness in retail sales persists - Wells Fargo
- Fed's Evans: Low U.S. inflation is a serious policy outcome miss
- US Dollar settles around 95 handle after US data-led fall
- Fed's Kaplan: Free and open trade is in the U.S. interest
- NY Fed Nowcast: GDP growth seen at 1.9% for 2017:Q2
- U.S. economy in a snapshot - New York Fed
- US: Consumer Price Index was unchanged in June on a seasonally adjusted basis
- US: Retail and food services sales for June 2017 were $473.5 billion, a decrease of 0.2%
- US: Industrial production rose 0.4% in June for its fifth consecutive monthly increase
- US: Confidence in future economic prospects continued to slide in early July - UoM
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