Stock Market Today: The Dow Leads an Up Day for Stocks
Boeing, American Express and Nike were the best Dow stocks to close out the week.
Stocks closed higher across the board Friday, with all three main benchmarks ending up on the week too. Looking ahead, next week will be a short one on Wall Street, with the stock and bond markets closed Thursday for Thanksgiving and wrapping up early on Friday.
At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 1.0% at 44,296, the S&P 500 was 0.4% higher at 5,969, and the Nasdaq Composite had added 0.2% to 19,003. Helping the Dow outperform was Boeing (BA), which climbed 4.1%, as well as American Express (AXP, +2.8%) and Nike (NKE, +3.1%).
At the other end of the Dow was Nvidia (NVDA), which fell 3.2%, shedding $116 billion in market value along the way. The artificial intelligence (AI) chipmaker reported solid earnings earlier this week, though some on Wall Street huffed about its revenue forecast.
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Most folks aren't concerned, though. William Blair analyst Sebastien Naji (Outperform, the equivalent of Buy), for one, said this was "a thesis-confirming quarter, highlighting the company's ability to record upside even as it transitions customers to its next-generation Blackwell systems."
He thinks accelerating demand for sovereign AI data centers and from enterprises will help Nvidia maintain its industry-leading growth.
MicroStrategy recovers as bitcoin nears $100,000
Elsewhere in the tech space, MicroStrategy (MSTR) surged 6.2%, recovering from Thursday's sharp selloff. Sparking yesterday's slide was a tweet from Citron Research that said the prominent short-selling firm had taken a short position in MSTR.
"Citron was the first to tell readers that MicroStrategy was the ultimate way to invest in Bitcoin, setting a $700 target. Fast forward to today: $MSTR has skyrocketed to over $5,000 (adjusted). Kudos to Michael Saylor for his visionary Bitcoin strategy ... Now, with Bitcoin investing easier than ever ... $MSTR's volume has completely detached from BTC fundamentals," Citron wrote on X.
The software firm and world's largest corporate bitcoin holder was quick to bounce back as bitcoin prices neared the psychologically significant $100,000 level. At last check, bitcoin – which trades 24 hours a day – was up 1.3% at $99,348.
Texas Pacific to join the S&P 500
Elsewhere, Texas Pacific Land (TPL, +14.2%) was tapped to join the S&P 500, replacing fellow energy stock Marathon Oil which was bought by ConocoPhillips (COP) in a deal that closed today. TXPL will begin trading on the S&P 500 at the start of trading this Tuesday, November 26, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices.
Being added to the main benchmark for the U.S. stock market "is kind of a big deal," wrote Dan Burrows, senior investing writer at Kiplinger.com, back in March. "Many trillions of passive dollars are invested in products that track the S&P 500," he added, noting that "hundreds of funds and ETFs now have to pick up shares" of the new S&P 500 stock, including the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY), which has more than $600 billion in assets under management.
Manufacturing, services PMIs improve
In economic news, S&P Global said its Flash Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) rose to 48.8 in November from October's 48.5. Still, any readings below 50 indicate contraction.
"S&P notes that anticipation of President-elect Donald Trump's proposed tariffs and trade protection has helped improve sentiment in the goods-producing sector, increasing factory employment," says José Torres, senior economist at Interactive Brokers. "At the same time, factories are trying to front-run tariffs by increasing their orders for imported input items."
S&P Global's Flash Services PMI jumped to 57 in November from 55 in October – a 32-month high.
Meanwhile, the University of Michigan said its Consumer Sentiment Index rose to 71.8 in November from October's reading of 70.5. The results missed economists' estimate of 70.5 and came in below the initial pre-election reading of 73.0.
"Ultimately, substantial uncertainty remains over the future implementation of Trump's economic agenda, and consumers will continue to recalibrate their views in the months ahead," UofM said in its release.
The report showed that year-ahead inflation expectations fell to their lowest level (2.6%) since December 2020, while long-run inflation expectations rose to 3.2% from 3.0%.
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