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U.S. stocks rose on Friday, ending a five-day losing streak.
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The consumer discretionary and technology sectors led gains, signaling a shift to risk-on.
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Positive ISM production data and political stability with Mike Johnson’s re-election helped stocks rise.
U.S. stocks rose on Friday, ending a five-day losing streak for the U.S. economy S&P500, Dow JonesAnd Nasdaq100.
Risky stocks in the consumer discretionary and technology sectors led the market higher.
Stocks hit their session highs around the same time Congressman Mike Johnson was re-elected Speaker of the House of Representatives. This indicates that internal fighting within the Republican Party may be more subdued than in previous months.
A blog post from Microsoft President Brad Smith, who said the company expects to spend $80 billion on data centers by 2025 amid an ongoing AI frenzy, also boosted tech stocks on Friday.
“Not since the invention of electricity has the United States had the opportunity it has today to leverage new technology to boost the nation’s economy,” Smith said.
Nuclear stocks rose to an outpouring of enthusiasm from analysts for the sector related to the demand of AI data centers. The shares of Constellation Energy Group and Vistra Corp. rose by 4% and 8.5% respectively. Constellation announced a $1 billion deal Thursday to provide power to more than a dozen government agencies.
Chip titan Nvidia jumped more than 4% in the session.
Investors were encouraged by December ISM Manufacturing data, which came in at 49.3%, representing the highest level in nine months. That was well above economists’ estimates of 48.0%, and above the 48.4% recorded in November.
Looking into next week, investors will focus on several economic updates, including unemployment claims, the preliminary consumer sentiment report and the U.S. employment report for December.
Here’s where the US indexes stood at 4pm on Friday:
Here’s what else happened today: