Wall Street Wraps Up Its Best Week of the Year

Wall Street on Friday coasted to the close of its best week since November:

• The Dow rose 96 points, or 0.2%, to 40,659
• The S&P 500 rose 11 points, or 0.2%, to 5,554.
• The Nasdaq rose 37 points, or 0.2%, to 17,631.
• For the week, the benchmark S&P rose nearly 4%, while the Dow gained 3%, and the Nasdaq 5%, per CNBC.

Friday's relative calm caps a manic week where strong data helped whip Wall Street around following a scary run the previous week, per the AP. Packaging company Amcor had one of the sharper drops in the S&P 500 on the day: It fell 4% after giving an earnings forecast for the year that was mostly below analysts' expectations. On the winning side was H&R Block, which leaped 12% after reporting a bigger-than-expected profit for the latest quarter and increasing its dividend.

The market's focus will swing next week to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. That's where Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will give a speech late in the week, and the setting has been home to hints about big policy announcements in the past. Powell could offer clues about whether the Fed is hoping to merely remove the brakes from the economy through rate cuts or to give it an accelerant.

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