US stocks coasted to the close of another winning week on Friday, per the AP.
- The Dow gained 125.08 points, or 0.3%, to 39,512.84.
- The S&P rose 8.60 points, or 0.2%, to 5,222.68 for its third straight winning week after its mostly miserable April.
- The Nasdaq edged down by 5.40, or less than 0.1%, to 16,340.87.
The S&P has climbed back within 0.6% of its record on revived hopes that the Federal Reserve may deliver cuts to interest rates this year. A flood of stronger-than-expected reports on profits from big US companies has also helped support the market. Gen Digital jumped 15.3% after reporting better profit for the first three months of 2024 than analysts expected. The cyber safety company, whose brands include Norton and LifeLock, also authorized a program to buy back up to $3 billion of its stock. It joined a lengthening list of companies announcing big such programs, which help goose per-share earnings for investors.
Novavax nearly doubled and shot up 98.7% after announcing a deal with Sanofi that could be worth more than $1.2 billion. The agreement includes a license to co-commercialize Novavax's COVID-19 vaccine worldwide, with some exceptions. Novavax also reported a slightly smaller loss for the latest quarter than analysts expected. They helped offset a drop of 11% for Akamai Technologies, which topped expectations for profit but fell short for revenue. The cloud-computing, security and content delivery company also gave some financial forecasts that fell short of analysts' expectations. It said the strengthening of the US dollar's value against other currencies is slicing into its business, along with slowing traffic growth across the industry. That helped overshadow its own announcement of a program to buy back up to $2 billion of its stock.
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