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- The Dow industrials leapt more than 380 points Friday following strong retail sales and earnings from Goldman Sachs.
- Goldman joined other banks this week in jumpstarting the Q3 earnings season with profit beats.
- Retail sales rose in September, confounding expectations for a decline.
US stocks closed higher Friday as Wall Street's key indexes locked in wins for the week on the back of unexpectedly strong monthly retail sales and a big earnings beat from Goldman Sachs.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged more than 380 points, with Goldman Sachs shares advancing after the bank's third-quarter earnings of $14.93 a share came in well ahead of expectations of $10.18, driven by strong investment banking revenue.
Goldman stock helped push the financial sector on the S&P 500 index up by more than 1%. Both indexes gained more than 1% for the week.
Here's where US indexes stood at 4:00 p.m. on Friday:
- S&P 500: 4,471.46, up 0.75%
- Dow Jones Industrial Average: 35,295.55, up 1.1%
- Nasdaq Composite: 14,897.34, up 0.5%
Goldman joined Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, JPMorgan and other banks this week that posted quarterly results above expectations. The banks were the first major companies to jumpstart the new earnings season.
But other companies may have trouble passing on higher prices to their customers while supply-chain problems are ongoing. Those factors potentially pose a serious risk to broader earnings prospects, said Morgan Stanley in a note Friday.
Meanwhile, stocks on Friday found support from the government's report that showed retail sales rose 0.7% last month to $625 billion, exceeding the median estimate of a 0.2% decline from economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Spending at stores and restaurants unexpectedly bounced up, a brighter sign for an economy highly dependent on consumers.
Elsewhere on the market, the Securities and Exchange Commission is set to approve the first US bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund as soon as next week, Bloomberg reported late Thursday.
Meanwhile, a China central bank official said the ripple effects from the Evergrande Group crisis that's roiled global markets are "controllable," marking China's first comments since the property developer missed international bond payments last month.
NuCypher, a little-known altcoin that bills itself as a decentralized threshold cryptography network, soared by more than 1,000% and touched a $2 billion market cap.
Gold dropped 1.6% to $1,768.00 per ounce. The 10-year Treasury note yield edged up to 1.577%.
Oil prices rose. West Texas Intermediate crude tacked on 1.1% at $82.17 per barrel. Brent oil, the international benchmark, added on 0.9% to $84.73.
Bitcoin surged 7.1% to $61,561.