NEW YORK, May 10: Stocks rallied on Friday on rosy outlooks from Nvidia Corp. and Intel Corp., and bonds rose slightly for the fifth day in a row on the view that interest rates will stay low for months to come.
The euro rose to a fresh four-year high against the dollar. US grain prices soared, with fund buying lifting wheat to 2-1/2 month highs and soybeans to near five-year peaks.
Oil prices jumped as OPEC officials signaled the need to cut back output to possibly make room for Iraqi supplies.
The Nvidia news was pretty good on the chip makers, and there’s sort of a general upward trend, said Rick Meckler, president of LibertyView, which oversees $1 billion. It’s a combination of still positive feelings over the end of the war and the fact that earnings season held no real disappointments.
The Dow Jones industrial average ended up 113.38 points, or 1.34 per cent, at 8,604.60. It was the Dow’s highest finish since Jan 16. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 Index added 13.14 points, or 1.43 per cent, to 933.41. The technology-laced Nasdaq Composite Index rallied 30.46 points, or 2.04 per cent, to 1,520.15.
For the week, the S&P 500 gained 0.36 per cent, the Dow added 0.25 per cent and Nasdaq advanced 1.15 per cent. For the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq, this marked their fourth straight week of gains for the first time since October 2002.
Advancers trounced decliners by a ratio of 3 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange and 11 to 5 on the Nasdaq. Trading was active, with about 1.31 billion shares changing hands on the Big Board, and about 1.55 billion shares traded on the Nasdaq.
The S&P 500 index has surged about 16 per cent since mid-March on hopes the economy will improve later this year, but several reports have pointed to a tepid recovery so far.
Stocks extended gains after US Treasury Secretary John Snow said he sees no risk of significant deflation in the United States. His remarks helped ease concerns after the Federal Reserve warned Tuesday that an “unwelcome substantial fall in inflation” could lead to economic weakness.
Nvidia shares soared 33.06 percent on Friday, a day after the graphics chip designer reported a smaller profit and lower revenue in its fiscal first quarter, but forecast revenue would rise sharply in the current quarter.—Reuters
