NEW YORK, Sept 24 (Reuters) – The S&P 500 ended slightly higher on Friday after a volatile week as gains in growth names like Facebook (FB.O) offset a dive by Nike (NKE.N) after the athletic wear company delivered a downbeat sales forecast.
Nike’s shares were the biggest drag on the Dow and the S&P 500 after it also warned of delays during the holiday shopping season, blaming a supply chain crunch. [nL4N2QP2WK Shares of footwear retailer Foot Locker (FL.N) also fell sharply.
Facebook and Tesla (TSLA.O) were the biggest boosts to the S&P 500 among individual names, although energy (.SPNY) led gains among sectors.
“Investors still are in love with growth equity,” said Rick Meckler, partner, Cherry Lane Investments, a family investment office in New Vernon, New Jersey.
“There’s fear among institutional investors that higher interest rates will depress the growth equity multiple, but retail investors just love their growth equities, the ones they know and whose earnings remain strong.”
Stocks fell sharply at the start of the week due to concerns over a default by China’s Evergrande (3333.HK) and its potential risk to global financial markets and also ahead of the Wednesday’s Federal Reserve statement.
Unofficially, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) rose 34.36 points, or 0.1%, to 34,799.18, the S&P 500 (.SPX) gained 6.58 points, or 0.15%, to 4,455.56 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) dropped 3.94 points, or 0.03%, to 15,048.31.
“It’s been a very volatile week to say the least, so I think going into the last week of September the volatility is likely to continue especially with the end-of-the-quarter window dressing,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New York.
Investors are also looking for signs of progress on President Joe Biden’s spending and budget bills. read more
Also, shares of cryptocurrency-related firms Coinbase Global (COIN.O), MicroStrategy Inc (MSTR.O), Riot Blockchain (RIOT.O) and Marathon Patent Group (MARA.O) fell after China’s central bank put a ban on crypto trading and mining. read more
Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; additional reporting by Devik Jain in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel and David Gregorio
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