Sept. 20 (UPI) — Spurred on by the Federal Reserve Board’s half-point cut in interest rates, the stock market closed out a buoyant week on Friday with the Dow Jones Industrial Average ending in record-high territory.
The Dow closed the week at 42,063.36, an all-time high, after squeezing out a 38-point gain on Friday. For the week, the Dow rose by 1.62% as investors digested the Fed’s first rate cut since 2020, which was issued on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the S&P 500 rose 1.36% for the week, finishing at 5,702.55 following a back-and-forth session on Friday, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq advanced 1.49% for the week, wrapping up at 17,948.32.
All three indexes saw their biggest gains on Thursday, when the S&P 500 soared 1.7% and the Dow advanced by 1.2% to record highs in response to the Fed’s move.
Friday’s trading, meanwhile, represented a something of a hangover after the previous day’s party and demonstrated that some of the optimism about the rate cut had already been priced in, according to analysts.
“Investors viewed the aggressive rate cut as positive catalyst,” Nationwide chief of investment research Mark Hackett told CNBC.
“The Fed was able to effectively convince investors that the sizable cut is a proactive measure to sustain economic momentum, rather than a reactive move to stabilize it. The strong market reaction indicates investors have confidence in the Fed and have a ‘glass half full’ mentality,” he said.
The news wasn’t as good, however, for former President Donald Trump’s Trump Media & Technology Group, which dropped another 7.8% to a new low on Friday, ending the week at $13.55 per share.
The “meme” stock continued a seven-day slide that has seen its shares fall more than 10%, wiping out billions in value as retail investors nervously eyed Thursday’s expiration of the lockup period, under which early investors, including the former president himself, were barred from selling shares following a merger with publicly traded shell company.
