Wall St. nets gain 3rd week in a row

Market still trying to ‘get its finger on the pulse,’ economist says.

NEW YORK — Wall Street ticked higher Friday to close out its third straight winning week, one punctuated by hopes that the economy can continue to steady itself despite the pandemic.

The S&P 500 rose 0.3% Friday and 1.2% for the week. It has rallied back to within 4.8% of its record set in February and is back to where it was in early June. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.2%; the Nasdaq composite added 0.3%.

Trading was muted across other markets, too, with stocks overseas, oil and gold making relatively modest moves. Even China’s market held steady: Stocks in Shanghai inched up 0.1% following a run earlier this month where their average daily move was more than 2%.

“The market just continues to try and get its finger on the pulse,” said James McCann, senior global economist at Aberdeen Standard Investments.

“The renewed spread of the virus and degree of community infection means the pace of recovery we’ve had is just not going to be able to hold up anymore,” he said. “A fairly decent chunk of U.S. activity is at risk.”

Amid the uncertainty, though, nearly three in five stocks rose within the S&P 500.

This week marked the start of earnings reporting season, and the nation’s biggest banks were some of the early headliners. Several warned they had to set aside billions of dollars to cover loans potentially going bad due to the recession. But investment banks also said their trading operations brought in more revenue than analysts had expected.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury held steady at 0.61%.

In the commodities markets, gold for delivery in August rose $9.70 to settle at $1,810 per ounce. A barrel of U.S. oil for August delivery slipped 16 cents to settle at $40.59. Brent crude, the international standard, fell 23 cents to $43.14 a barrel.