Wall Street closes higher but still ends week in the red

Stocks on Wall Street shook off a downbeat start and ended broadly higher Friday, though the rebound was not enough to erase their losses for the week.

The S&P 500 rose 1.1% after having been down 0.9% in the early going. The gain snapped a four-day losing streak for the benchmark index, which still posted its fourth losing week in the last five.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.9% after a sell-off in technology stocks eased.

The latest choppy trading comes a day after the S&P 500 closed out its worst quarter since the onset of the pandemic in early 2020. Its performance in the first half of 2022 was the worst since the first six months of 1970.

The S&P 500 has been in a bear market since last month, meaning an extended decline of 20% or more from its most recent peak. It’s now down 20.2% from the peak it set at the beginning of this year.

Bond yields fell significantly. The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which helps set mortgage rates, fell to 2.89% from 2.97% Thursday. The yield on the 2-year Treasury slipped to 2.83% from 2.92%.

The market’s deep slump this year reflects investors’ anxiety over surging inflation and the possibility that higher interest rates could bring on a recession.

“What we’re seeing today is reflective of really what we’re going to see here in July, which is continued pressure on the markets, unless we see outsized economic reports on jobs or inflation, or some more meaningful change in Fed policy,” said Greg Bassuk, CEO at AXS Investments.

The S&P 500 rose 39.95 to 3,825.33. Roughly 85% of the stocks in the index finished higher.

The Dow gained 321.83 points to 31,097.26, while the Nasdaq rose 99.11 points to 11,127.85. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 19.77 points, or 1.2%, to 1,727.76.