Third-quarter earnings reports, the Federal Reserve’s latest rate decision, and developments in the China-U.S. trade war led to some wild swings in the stock market. However, all three benchmark gauges — the S & P 500 , Nasdaq , and Dow — managed to finish in the green for the week. The U.S. central bank on Wednesday delivered a widely expected quarter-point interest rate cut for the second time this year. Fed chairman Jerome Powell said that he’s committed to bringing inflation down to 2%. He also said that a December rate cut was not a foregone conclusion. There were two dissenters to Wednesday’s policy decision: Kansas City Fed President Jeffrey Schmid voted for no change in rates, while Fed Governor Stephen Miran was in favor of a half-point cut. Corporate earnings from Big Tech were on investors’ minds, too. What moved stocks the most was increased AI spending and revenue acceleration in cloud computing divisions. Club names Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta Platforms all did their part to move the market — albeit in different directions. (We’ll break down our take on each of these releases later on.) Finally, the U.S. and China reached a one-year trade agreement Thursday after President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping sat down for a high-stakes meeting in South Korea. As a result, the U.S. will reduce fentanyl-linked tariffs on China to 10% from 20%. This lowered the overall levies on China goods to roughly 47%. Beijing, in turn, agreed to a one-year pause on rare earth export controls that the world’s second-largest economy had announced in early October. All of these caused big fluctuations in the stock market over the past week. Although the S & P 500 closed at records on Monday and Tuesday, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq did the same on Tuesday and Wednesday, both indexes fell significantly on Thursday. On Friday, they rebounded. We used the market’s highs and lows to our advantage. The S & P 500 was in overbought territory earlier this week, serving as a reminder to take profits on names after solid runs. A big move in Danaher stock gave us an opportunity to do exactly that on Monday. Shares had surged 22% since the Club’s last buy in September. Conversely, we added to our Nike position on Friday as the stock continues to slide despite clear signs that its turnaround is working. For October, the S & P 500 increased by 2.3% and the Nasdaq advanced by 4.7%. Meanwhile, the Dow secured its sixth consecutive month of gains Friday – the first time since 2018 — with a return of 2.5%. .SPX YTD mountain S & P 500 (SPX) year-to-date performance Nvidia and Apple had their own milestones. Nvidia was the first U.S. company in history to surpass a $5 trillion market capitalization on Wednesday. The stock was supported by strength in the generative artificial intelligence trade and bullish updates from the chipmaker’s annual GTC conference. Management announced high-profile partnerships with Finnish telecom firm Nokia and cellular…
Read More: The Fed lowered interest rates, 2 stocks hit milestones