Wall Street Sets Closing Record on Profits and Economic Strength

NEW YORK, July 23 (Reuters) – Wall Street gained ground for the fourth consecutive session on Friday, extending a rally that pushed all three major US stock indices to record closing highs amid bullish earnings and signs of recovery economy fueled investor risk appetite.

The S&P 500, Nasdaq and Dow all posted weekly gains.

“We see a continuation of the past two days. It’s a roller coaster upside down. We took the fall first, and we’ve been on the top since,” Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at Independent Advisor Alliance said in Charlotte. , North Carolina.

Growth (.IGX) and value (.IVX) stocks hovered for much of the week as market participants weighed spikes in infections from the COVID-19 Delta variant against strong results from businesses and signs of economic recovery.

“There is push and pull, there is clearly a conflict in the market,” Zaccarelli added. “There is a strong difference of opinion as to whether the future is bright or if there are clouds on the horizon.”

Market participants are now looking to next week with the Federal Reserve’s two-day monetary policy meeting and a string of high-level earnings.

The Fed’s statement will be analyzed for clues regarding the timing of its tightening of its accommodative policies, although President Jerome Powell has repeatedly said the economy still needs the full backing of the central bank.

Unofficially, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) rose 238.34 points, or 0.68%, to 35,061.69, the S&P 500 (.SPX) gained 44.33 points, or 1.02% , at 4,411.81 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) added 152.39 points, or 1.04%, to 14,836.99.

The second quarter reporting season is pulling all the plugs, with 120 of the S&P 500 companies reporting. Of those, 88% exceeded consensus, according to Refinitiv.

“We see companies, on average, beating up and down,” Zaccarelli said. “We are seeing consumer resilience and this is the story of the earnings season so far.”

Analysts are now expecting year-on-year cumulative profit growth for the S&P 500 of 78.1% for the April to June period, a significant increase from the 54% annual growth seen at the start of the quarter.

Shares of chipmaker Intel Corp (INTC.O) fell after it said Thursday night that it still faces supply constraints and provided disappointing advice. Read more

American Express Co (AXP.N) advanced after the release of second quarter results, which far exceeded expectations amid a global recovery in consumer spending. Read more

Social media companies Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) and Snap Inc (SNAP.N) advanced on strong results. Read more

These reports gave shares of Facebook Inc (FB.O) a boost, which is expected to release second quarter results next week.

Other top earnings expected next week include Tesla Inc (TSLA.O), Apple Inc (AAPL.O), Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O), Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) and Amazon.com (AMZN .O).

Industrials Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N), Boeing Co (BA.N), Ford Motor Co (FN), General Dynamics Corp (GD.N), 3M Co (MMM.N) Caterpillar Inc (CAT.N), Chevron Corp (CVX.N) and Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N), along with a host of health, consumer and other goods, are also on deck.

Reporting by Stephen Culp; Additional reporting by Devik Jain and Shreyashi Sanyal in Bangalore; Editing by Cynthia Osterman

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