Stocks climbed higher on Friday as market participants shook off much of the concerns that impacted Wall Street earlier this month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose nearly 100 points, while the S&P 500 Index and Nasdaq Composite each advanced about 0.2%.
Here's how the market settled to close out the week:
S&P 500 Index (NYSE: SPY): +0.20% or +11.03 points to 5,554.25
Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSE: DIA): +0.24% or +96.70 points to 40,659.76
Nasdaq Composite Index (NASDAQ: QQQ): +0.21% or +37.22 points to 17,631.72
In Economic News:
Consumer Sentiment rose for the first time in five month in the top half of August, according to the University of Michigan's preliminary reading, as consumers' expectations for inflation in the next year remain at their lowest level since December 2020.
The survey's latest reading came in at 67.8, up from 66.4 in July and above estimates, marking the highest sentiment reading since June. Notably, the U.S. presidential election impacted August's sentiment, with sentiment for Democrats rising 6%, while sentiment for Republican slipped 5%. The survey also showed that 41% of consumers believe Vice President Kamala Harris is the better candidate for the economy, while 38% believe former President Donald Trump is the better one for the job.
"Survey responses generally incorporate who, at the moment, consumers expect the next president will be," said Joanne Hsu, director of Surveys of Consumers, in a statement. "Some consumer note that if their election expectations do not come to pass, their expected trajectory of the economy would be entirely different."
Housing Starts declined to four-year lows in July as higher-for-longer interest rates continued to impact the housing market. Starts fell 6.8% month-to-month in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,238,000, The Commerce Department reported Friday, coming in below June's revised level and 16% lower compared to July 2023. Single-family states totaled 851,000, about 14% below June's print.
Building Permits, were also at their lowest level since June 2020, totaling 1.396 million in July, declining 4% month-to-month and 7% annually. Permits for single-family units also ticked 0.1% lower to 938,000.
In Single-Stocks News:
Shares of Danish biotech Bavarian Nordic (OTC: BVNRY) rose higher on Friday after it submitted data to the European Medicines Agency on behalf of its mpox vaccine to expand its use in teenagers as the World Health Organization declared the infection's outbreak a public health emergency this week.
"More than 70% of the cases in Africa currently are in people younger than 18, so it's going to be critical that our vaccine can be used in this younger age group," CEO Paul Chaplin told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" in an interview Friday.
Rocket Labs (NASDAQ: RKLB) shares rose to a fresh 52-week high on Friday after the space company announced it has packed and shipped two Mars-bound spacecraft to Cape Canaveral, Florida in preparation for a launch. The two spacecraft were designed, built, integrated, and tested by Rocket Lab for the University of California Berkeley's Space Science Laboratory and NASA, and are a part of the Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) heliophysics mission.
"The successful delivery of the spacecraft to Kennedy Space Center marks a significant milestone and the culmination of over three years of dedicated teamwork from individuals across the project, especially our partners at Rocket Lab," said Rob Lillis, ESCAPADE Principal Investigator and Associate Director for Planetary Science at the UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory, in a statement. "Interplanetary spacecraft must be much more resilient than earth satellites, and developing not one, but two of these probes almost from scratch was no small feat."
On the Earnings Front:
H&R Block (NYSE: HRB) shares rose Friday as the tax-services provider reported better-than-expected fiscal third-quarter results and issued rosy fiscal 2025 outlook. For its full-year 2025, the company expects adjusted earnings per share of $5.15 to $535 on revenue in a range of $3.69 billion and $3.75 billion. The company also announced a quarterly dividend of $0.37 per share, representing an increase of 17% and a new share-buyback program worth $1.5 billion.
"We continue to make progress, gain new insight, and translate this client success into value for shareholders, and are well positioned to build on this momentum in fiscal 2025 and beyond, CEO Jeff Jones said in a statement.