S&P 500 snaps 3-day losing streak
Health care and technology companies helped lift U.S. stocks higher Friday, breaking a threeday losing streak for the S&P 500 and giving the benchmark index its fifth consecutive weekly gain.
Renewed optimism for a potential resolution to the U.S.-China trade conflict helped put investors in a buying mood following a Bloomberg story saying U.S. officials are preparing a deal that could be signed within a month.
The trade war between the world’s largest economies has raised prices for consumers and companies. It also has deepened concerns that escalating tariffs could worsen the global economy’s slowdown.
Even so, investors’ jitters over trade and signs of a slowing global economy have been eased by confidence in the prospects for steady U.S. growth and an increasingly hands-off Federal Reserve. That has fueled the market’s strong start to this year following its steep selloff at the end of 2018.
“Clearly, the tariffs negotiations are moving in the right direction, as far as the market is concerned, and that’s positive,” said Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Financial.
The S&P 500 climbed 19.20 points, or 0.7 percent, to 2,803.69. That’s the index’s first close above 2,800 points since Nov. 8. The S&P has notched a weekly gain in nine of the past 10 weeks.