Breadth is back: US stocks end week with solid gain

The S&P 500 booked a fresh intraday record high before half those gains faded in the last half-hour of trading, but still finished with a solid gain of 0.6% on the day and 0.9% on the week. The Nasdaq 100 also rose 0.6% on the day, but was off 0.3% this week.

The Russell 2000 Index had another strong day, up 1.1%. Its 6% gain this week was its biggest of the year, and its biggest weekly outperformance of the Nasdaq 100 since Pfizer’s vaccine announcement in November 2020.

Breadth is back: the number of S&P 500 stocks that gained outnumbered those who fell by more than 300. The advance-decline line has been above 275 for three consecutive sessions for the first time since October 2022, when the S&P 500 was just emerging from the end of a bear market.

All S&P sector ETFs were positive save for communication services, where Meta’s 2.7% decline weighed on the space. Consumer discretionary topped the charts with a 1.3% gain.

Earnings season unofficially kicked off with JPMorgan, whose record profits were still disappointing in the eyes of Wall Street, sending shares 1.2% lower.

Wells Fargo fared way worse on its quarterly results, down 6% in its worst day in over a year. Higher than expected costs and a lower than anticipated net interest margin were singled out as the lowlights.