The bulls on Wall Street emerged victorious Friday but not for the week. Investors shook off a midday, end-of-the-week sell-off on geopolitical concerns sparked by President Donald Trump’s Oval Office spat with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy . Still, the advance Friday was not enough for the S & P 500 and Nasdaq to overcome weekly losses. Wall Street has been wrestling with mounting uncertainty over Trump’s trade policy and the overall health of the U.S. economy. The week ahead will shine a light on both, with more tariffs supposedly set to kick in and fresh jobs data on the way. All three major averages gained more than 1.3% in a volatile Friday. Stocks were initially supported by the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation measure, the PCE index, matching expectations before the Oval Office drama caused a temporary reversal. The market’s gains accelerated into the close. Still, the broad S & P 500 lost nearly 1% for the week and finished the month of February lower by 1.4%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq led to the downside, dropping 3.5% over the past five sessions and losing almost 4% in February. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was the outperformer, climbing roughly 1% for the week, supported largely by strong weekly gains in shares of insurance firm Travelers and paint maker Sherwin-Williams . The 30-stock Dow lost 1.6% in February. Another Dow component that finished the week higher was Club name Home Depot , which kicked off our week of earnings reports last Tuesday. The home improvement’s fourth-quarter report cleared a lowered bar , and we reiterated our buy-equivalent rating on the stock. A decline in the 10-year Treasury yield this past week may also have lent support to Home Depot shares. That’s because mortgage rates track the 10-year yield, and lower borrowing costs can spur housing market activity, which is good for Home Depot’s business. We heard from three Club names on Wednesday, with off-price retailer TJX Companies demonstrating why it remains one of our core holdings and prompting us to bump up our price target on the stock. Salesforce and Nvidia reported after Wednesday’s close, and the sharp sell-off in both tech stocks the following day did not match up to our perceptions of the quarters. The broader negative sentiment that swept through the market Thursday may have contributed to the size of the declines, particularly in Nvidia, given its exposure to geopolitics due to AI chip sales in China. Salesforce’s print wasn’t perfect, but the software maker gave us enough to stay believers in its AI story. Nvidia, in yet another supposedly make-or-break quarter, delivered stronger-than-expected results and outlook, even if the magnitude of the guidance beat was not as large as investors have grown accustomed to. We affirmed our “own it, don’t trade it” view on Nvidia. Trades for the week ended Feb. 28 We took a generally cautious approach to buying the market weakness and only made three trades for the week. On Tuesday, we…
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