US stocks gain to remain on course for best week of 2024

U.S. stocks gained Friday, but remained on course for their best week of the year as easing fears over the economic triggered a wave of dip buying in stocks
following the recent market turmoil.

At 16:57 ET (12: 57 GMT), Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 108 points, or 0.1%, S&P 500 rose 0.3%, and NASDAQ Composite added 0.4%. Upbeat economic data continue ahead of Jackson Hole

The University of Michigan survey data released Friday showed that consumer sentiment rebounded in August for the first time since August, cooling further worries about the economy.“

Recent data has shown that sentiment is being dragged down by lower income households, likely as a consequence of continued sticky inflation,” Jefferies said in a note.

Consumer expectations about inflation over the next year and five-to-ten years were also unchanged at 2.9% and 3%, respectively, firming expectations the Fed’s policies are working just as focus shifts to Fed chairman Jerome Powell’s speech next week at Jackson Hole, Wym.“

We expect Chair Powell will lay out a case for an orderly withdrawal of monetary policy restrictiveness in a speech at Jackson Hole the morning of Friday, August 23, and by orderly, we mean 25 bp rate cuts, rather than 50 bp,” economists at UBS said in a recent note. Ford (NYSE:F ) to recall 85,000 SUVs, Texas Instruments (NASDAQ:TXN ) in US agreement

In corporate news, Ford (NYSE:F) stock fell 0.3% after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on Friday the auto giant is recalling about 85,000 Explorer SUVs equipped with the Police Interceptor Utility package over concerns of an engine fire.

Texas Instruments (NASDAQ:TXN) stock fell 1 % despite the semiconductor company signed a non-binding preliminary memorandum of terms with the U.S. Department of Commerce to receiving funding of $1.6B as part of the CHIPS Act.

The agreement outlines up to $1.6 billion in proposed direct funding under the CHIPS and Science Act to support the construction of three 300mm semiconductor wafer fabs in Texas and Utah. Applied materials drops despite Q3 beat; Rocket Lab readies launch

Applied materials fell 3% even as the chip equipment maker late Thursday delivered upbeat earnings guidance after fiscal third-quarter results topped Wall Street estimates, driven by ongoing growth in China despite ongoing regulatory headwinds.

Still, UBS flagged the concerns that the company is “fundamentally still the most reliant on mature node demand and this is where spending is the most over-heated.”

Rocket Lab jumped more than 16% after the space company packed and shipped two spacecrafts destined for Mars to Cap Canaveral, marking its first mission to another planet.

The twin spacecraft will support NASA’s Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers mission.

(Ambar Warrick and Peter Nurse contributed to this article.)

Source: Investing.com