Stock market today: Wall Street coasts to the finish line of another winning week
U.S. stocks coasted to the close of another winning week with a quiet, mixed finish
NEW YORK — U.S. stocks coasted to the close of another winning week on Friday.
The S&P 500 rose 8.60 points, or 0.2%, to 5,222.68 to finish a third straight winning week following its mostly miserable April. It had been on pace for a bigger gain in the morning, but that mostly disappeared following a discouraging report on U.S. consumer sentiment.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 125.08 points, or 0.3%, to 39,512.84, and the Nasdaq composite edged down by 5.40, or less than 0.1%, to 16,340.87.
The S&P 500 has climbed back within 0.6% of its record on revived hopes that the Federal Reserve may deliver cuts to interest rates this year. A flood of stronger-than-expected reports on profits from big U.S. companies has also helped support the market.
Gen Digital jumped 15.3% after reporting better profit for the first three months of 2024 than analysts expected. The cyber safety company, whose brands include Norton and LifeLock, also authorized a program to buy back up to $3 billion of its stock. It joined a lengthening list of companies announcing big such programs, which helps goose per-share earnings for investors.
Novavax nearly doubled and shot 98.7% higher after announcing a deal with Sanofi that could be worth more than $1.2 billion. The agreement includes a license to co-commercialize Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine worldwide, with some exceptions. Novavax also reported a slightly smaller loss for the latest quarter than analysts expected.
They helped offset a drop of 11% for Akamai Technologies, which topped expectations for profit but fell short for revenue. The cloud-computing, security and content delivery company also gave some
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