STORY: Wall Street’s main indexes ended higher on Friday, with the Dow adding 1.9% to finish at a record closing high, the S&P 500 climbing one-and-a-half percent and the Nasdaq surging nearly 1.9%.
Investors piled into stocks after U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell hinted at a September interest-rate cut during his Jackson Hole Symposium speech.
Carol Schleif, chief market strategist at BMO Private Wealth Management, said that was one of a “combination of events” that triggered Friday’s rally.
“It could be things like you’ve got lighter volume technically. You had the door open, and markets are taking it like the door is wide open, for a September rate cut, which markets had been looking for or hoping for, but not necessarily counting on. [FLASH] And you could also have some dip buying that’s coming from the technology pullback that you’ve seen this week to date, even though those names are up solidly off the April lows. There’s always some cash on the sidelines that’s looking for a great entry point.”
Stocks on the move Friday included Coinbase, which soared 6.5% as investors scooped up crypto-related shares after Powell’s speech.
Shares of Intel gained 5.5% on news that the U.S. government would take a 10% stake in the struggling chip maker.
Intuit’s stock dropped 5% after the TurboTax-maker forecast first-quarter revenue growth below analysts’ estimates due to weak performance at its Mailchimp marketing platform.
And shares of Workday shed about 3% after the human resources software provider gave an in-line outlook for the current quarter.