Wall Street rallied Friday to cap another strong week for stocks, led by Apple and other companies that made even bigger profits during the summer than expected. For the day, the Dow rose 828 points, 2.5%, to 32,861; the S&P 500 rose 93 points, or 2.4%, to 3,901; and the tech-centric Nasdaq rose 309 points, or 2.8%, to 11,102. For the benchmark S&P, this is the first back-to-back weekly gains since August. Apple rose 7.7% and was the strongest force lifting the S&P after reporting fatter revenue and profit than expected for the latest quarter. Intel jumped 9.5% after delivering much bigger profit than analysts forecasted, even though it said it saw “worsening economic conditions.”
Gilead Sciences soared 12.1%, and T-Mobile US gained 6.9% after they also topped Wall Street's profit expectations. They helped to offset a 8.2% drop for Amazon, which offered a weaker-than-expected forecast for upcoming revenue. It was the latest Big Tech company to take a beating this week after reporting some discouraging trends. It's a sharp turnaround after the group dominated Wall Street for years with seemingly unstoppable growth. Earlier in the week, Meta Platforms lost nearly a quarter of its value after reporting a second straight quarter of revenue decline. Microsoft and Google's parent company also reported slowdowns in key areas.
Such woes created a sharp split on Wall Street this week between lagging Big Tech stocks and the rest of the market. The Nasdaq, which is stuffed with high-growth tech stocks, was up 2% this week, and it would have been much worse if not for Apple's boost from Friday. The Dow, meanwhile, gained more than 5% this week because it has less of an emphasis on tech. The S&P was up nearly 4% for the week, per CNBC. (More stock market stories.)