US stocks close lower after strong week
Wall Street stocks gave back a fraction of the week's gains on Friday, dipping after the prior session's surge amid improving sentiment about the economy. After tacking on more than one percent on Thursday, major indices weakened in the latter half of Friday's sessions. "After a really strong week... it's not unusual to see some mean reversion," said Art Hogan, an analyst at B. Riley Financial. The broad-based S&P 500 finished at 4,409.59, down 0.4 percent for the day but up 2.6 percent for the week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 0.3 percent to 34,299.12, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 0.7 percent to 13,689.57. The market has rallied in recent weeks amid expectations that the Federal Reserve is nearing the end of its cycle of increasing interest rates. Sentiment has also been boosted by an array of US economic data that has bolstered hopes the world's biggest economy can avert a recession. This included a report on Friday showing solid consumer sentiment by the University of Michigan. Among individual companies, Adobe shares climbed 0.9 percent after reporting record quarterly revenues and projecting greater-than-expected profits in the current quarter. The software giant said it is well-positioned to "lead" in the new era of generative artificial intelligence. Disney fell 1.7 percent following the unexpected resignation of Chief Financial Officer Christine McCarthy amid news reports of strategy disagreement atop the company's executive ranks. UPS shares dipped 0.2 percent after workers voted to authorise leaders of the Teamsters union to undertake a strike if contract talks falter. Humana fell 3.9 percent on worries of increased medical claims, which could raise costs. Analysts pointed to an uptick of claims from medical procedures that had been put off during the Covid-19 pandemic. (AFP)