Friday’s Stock Market Close: US Equities Finish Mixed To End Volatile Week, Yields Rise

U.S. stocks finished mixed on Friday as traders were unable to bounce back from Thursday’s losses.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 62.76 points to 26,671.95, while the S&P 500 rose 9.16 points to 3,224.73 and the Nasdaq Composite Index edged up 29.36 points to 10,503.19.

For the week, the Dow gained 2.28%.

Friday’s volume on the New York Stock Exchange totaled 3.4 billion shares with 1,678 issues advancing, 78 setting new highs, and 1,298 declining, with one stock setting a new low .

Active movers were led by NIO Inc. (NIO), Moderna Inc. (MRNA) and Verona Pharma (VRNA).

Nasdaq was weighed down by Netflix (NFLX), which sank 6.52% after reporting second-quarter earnings that missed analyst expectations.

“This [stock performance on Friday] is more of a necessary pause in some of these segments,” said Michael Hans, chief investment officer at Clarfeld Citizens Private Wealth. “I would say the market action this week has been fairly healthy with the rotation we’ve seen. You want better market breadth, you want more participation.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel raised doubts that European leaders will be able to agree upon a 750 billion-euro ($854 billion) funding package to fight COVID-19 at a summit in Brussels.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Friday that Congress should forgive “small” loans issued under the Paycheck Protection Program during the coronavirus pandemic,

“We should consider forgiving all small loans, but would need fraud protection,” Mnuchin told the House Small Business Committee.

Housing starts jumped by 17.3% in June following May's 8.2% increase, said the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Building permits rose by 2.1% in June after climbing by 14.1% in May.

"Privately-owned housing completions in June were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,225,000. This is 4.3% above the revised May estimate of 1,174,000 and is 5.1% above the June 2019 rate of 1,166,000," the agencies said.

On Thursday, more than 77,000 people in the U.S. were confirmed as infected with COVID-19, a new record. Texas, Florida and California were the hardest hit states. Dr. Anthony Fauci warned that cases could soon exceed 100,000 a day

The U.S. has now confirmed more than 3.5 million coronavirus cases, while more than 138,000 Americans have died.

California, Florida and Texas, facing a spike in cases, have been forced to scale back reopening of businesses.

Gregory Faranello, head of U.S. rates trading at AmeriVet Securities, said: “We’re rolling into this period of coronavirus cases increasing and we’ve had some shutdowns. So, there’s definitely a sense of nervousness in the market.”

Overnight in Asia markets finished mixed, as China’s Shanghai Composite index edged up 0.13%; Japan’s Nikkei-225 slipped 0.32%; and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng exchange gained 0.47%.

In Europe markets finished mixed, as Britain’s FTSE-100 rose 0.63%, while France’s CAC-40 dropped 0.31% and Germany’s DAX climbed 0.35%.

Crude oil futures slipped 0.32% at $40.62 per barrel, Brent crude edged down 0.05% at $43.12. Gold futures rose 0.66%.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury gained 2.61% to 0.628% while yield on the 30-year Treasury rose 2.15% to 1.329%.