Associated Press Business Writer Stanchion
NEW YORK (AP) – US stocks gathered on Friday to brightly close the boring February February.
The S&P 500 jumped 1.6% to trim the loss that month. After weaker than expected reports about the economy, it fell in five days of the last six days, and worries about Donald Trump’s tariffs knocked out the index from last week’s greatest set of all time.
Dow Jones’ industrial average rose 601 points (1.4%), while Nasdaq’s composites rose 1.6%.
Much of the recent damage has focused on the biggest winners of the market in recent years, and its momentum has sometimes seemed almost impossible to stop. For example, stocks that frenzied around artificial intelligence technology have dropped sharply, for example. Meanwhile, Bitcoin has cut its record by more than 20%.
Many of the beaten areas of the market jumped up on Friday to recover some of their losses. Nvidia, which has become one of the most influential stocks on the market, was the strongest force lifting the S&P 500, up 4% after a fall of 8.5% on Thursday.
Stock prices rose following an economic report released in the morning.
According to measures the Federal Reserve prefers to use, inflation across the country slowed slightly, behaving as economists expected. This is good news for the market as a whole, as it could give the Federal Reserve room to continue cutting key interest rates at some point later this year.
It could in turn help to cover the economy. The Fed has put on rates so far this year after a sharp cut in late last year.
However, a report on Friday said US households had rebounded spending in January. It is dangerous because their strong spending is the main reason the US economy has avoided a recession despite high interest rates.
US consumers had already given them a big hint of worrying about them being under pressure. Even if it’s not as bad as the peak from 2022, inflation remains high, and the tariffs announced by Trump can further boost the price of higher cost of living.
Wall Street hopes that all the talks about tariffs are mere tools Trump is using to negotiate with other countries and will eventually bring them back.
But nonetheless, recent reports show that all the talks already urge our consumers to compensate for much higher inflation in the future. At some point, such worries can drive their actions, which could be dragged into the economy even without tariffs.
All uncertainty regarding tariffs, as well as deregulation and other potential movements, “if the market is not moving towards Trump’s more market-friendly policies, the level of trust could continue to be erode,” wrote Bofa’s global research report.
Of course, the majority of US household spending declines in January may have been the simple result of painful cold weather and other anomalies across the country. But it also shut down the 2024 run at a solid pace, following several signals that slowed the growth of the US economy.
Most shares within the S&P 500 rose on Friday, led by AES after the energy company reported earnings in the latest quarter that blew past analyst expectations. CEO Andrés Gluski also said AES stocks rose 11.7%, as they saw strong demand from AI data centers and new US manufacturing plants.
Signet Jewellers said it was up 5.2% after investment company Select Equity Group, and is pushing to accumulate ownership of nearly 10% of retailers and find another way to sell the company to the board or raise the stock price.
They helped offset Dell’s 4.7% decline. This reported higher profits in the recent quarter than analysts expected, but revenues were not under short.
The S&P 500 rose to 92.93 points to 5,954.50. The Dow Jones industrial average scored 43,840.91 from 601.41, while the Nasdaq composite jumped from 302.86 to 18,847.28.
In the bond market, the Treasury Department will sink once again, following data on consumer spending and inflation. The 2010 Treasury yield fell from 4.26% to 4.20% in the second half of Thursday. It’s been falling sharply since last month when it was approaching 4.80% as concerns grew about where the US economy is heading.
In the overseas stock market, the index fell sharply in Asia as tariff concerns continued.
China’s Commerce Department issued a statement on Friday protesting Trump’s decision to double-double tariffs on Chinese products to 20%, violating international trade rules, “it increases the burden on American businesses and consumers, and undermines the stability of the global industrial chain.”
In Hong Kong, the index reached 3.3%, Shanghai reached 2%, Seoul reached 3.4%, and Tokyo reached 2.9%.
AP business writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
Original issue: February 28, 2025 9:55am EST
