Late Rally Lifts Wall Street to Gains

Wall Street wrapped up its fourth straight winning month on Friday thanks to a late rally, the AP reports. The Dow, which struggled much of the day, rose 114 points to 26,428, the S&P 500 rose 24 points to 3,271, and the tech-dominated Nasdaq rose 157 points to 10,745. Worries about the coronavirus recovery contributed to declines for companies such as Chevron and Caterpillar, notes the Wall Street Journal. In contrast, Big Tech had a great day, after Apple, Facebook, and Amazon reported stronger-than-expected quarterly results on Thursday.

“The push-pull factors remain the same,” Edward Park of Brooks Macdonald tells the Journal, in regard to the mindset of investors. “We’ve seen incremental vaccine improvements but the market seems to have priced that in for the medium term. But there is still the risk of a second wave, or an elongated first wave of the virus, deepening China-US tensions and heightened anti-China rhetoric from western allies of the US. (More stock market stories.)