U.S. stocks fell at the open on Friday, as Wall Street looked to end a volatile week on a positive note. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) fell 0.1%, while the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) fell 0.2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) fell 0.2%.
Markets are approaching the end of the most volatile week of the 2024 campaign. Monday saw the worst rout of the year, and Wall Street’s “fear gauge” — the CBOE Volatility Index (^VIX) — rose to its highest levels since the height of the pandemic.
By Thursday, a reassuring look at the labor market — in the form of the routine weekly jobless claims report — was reason enough for investors to buy back in. Both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq were up more than 2%, with the S&P recording its best day since late 2022 — a remarkable feat, given the broad scope of the 2024 rally.
Finally, thanks to a modest gain on Friday, the major indexes may end the week close to where they started. After Thursday’s session, the benchmark S&P 500 was down about 0.5% from Friday’s close. That’s all the more reason, several strategists told Yahoo Finance’s Julie Hyman in her Morning Brief newsletter, to stay calm amid the chaos.
Friday is a quiet day, with no notable economic or earnings releases on the agenda. In the individual moves, Nvidia (NVDA) will once again be in the spotlight after this week’s wild swings. Its stock is up slightly in premarket trading. Meanwhile, Paramount (PARA) jumped more than 5% after it reported its first-ever profit in the streaming space and said it plans to lay off workers over the next year.
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