NEW YORK, New York – The rally in U.S. stocks continued Friday, with the Nasdaq Composite leading the way. The major movers were Netflix and Alphabet, the parent company of Google, which announced on Friday it was laying off 12,000 employees worldwide.
“We’re having a more emotional reaction than expected,” Jeff Kilburg, founder and CEO of KKM Financial told CNBC Friday. “A lot of people got so pessimistic, and we saw parabolic moves to kick off the year. Now, as expected, the markets aren’t going in a straight line.”
“We are finding a way to continue to move and have higher lows. The higher lows put a little bit of confidence in the bulls. However, the technicals are still favoring the bears and selling rallies.”
“You’re seeing more weight go into some of the beat-up technology and because people are becoming a little bit more thoughtful of opportunity in the absolute tech wreck we saw in 2022,” Kilburg added.
The Nasdaq Composite advanced 288.17 points or 2.66 percent to 11,140.43.
The Dow Jones industrials gained 330.93 points or 1.00 percent to 33,375.49.
The Standard and Poor’s 500 dropped 73.76 points or 1.89 percent to 3,972.61.
On foreign exchange markets, the U.S. dollar finished the week on a weak note. The euro surged to 1.0856 by the U.S. close Friday. The British pound was robust at 1.2394.
The Canadian dollar jumped to 1.3381. The Australian dollar bounded up to 0.6969. The New Zealand dollar was sharply higher at 0.6471.
Going against the trend, the Japanese yen slid to 129.58. The Swiss franc eased to 0.9203.
Internationally, there were gains on most stock markets Friday, particularly in parts of Asia ahead of the new Lunar Year.
The Hang Sang in Hong Kong surged 1.81 percent. China’s Shanghai Composite advanced 0.76 percent.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 rallied 0.56 percent.
The Singapore Straits Times Index rose 0.054 percent. The Australian All Ordinaries garnered 0.23 percent. In Indonesia, the Jakarta Composite increased 0.81 percent.
New Zealand’s S&P/NZX 50 jumped 0.77 percent. In South Korea, the Kospi Composite added 0.63 percent.
The Dax in Germany cruised up 0.76 percent. The CAC 40 in Paris rose 0.63 percent. London’s FTSE 100 gained 0.30 percent.
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