By Yasin Ebrahim
Investing.com – The S&P 500 snapped a two-week Friday, as its strong end to the week failed to offset losses earlier the week after the Federal Reserve signaled bond tapering could be on the horizon by year-end.
The S&P 500 rose 0.8%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.7%, or 225 points, the Nasdaq was up 1.2%.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Google-parent Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT ended higher with the latter ending more than 2% higher.
Microsoft was boosted following news earlier this week that the tech giant will raise business subscription prices on its suite of Microsoft 365 products.
The climb in big tech comes as other corners of the market including cyclicals are struggling to hold onto gains amid concerns about the impact of the Delta variant on economic growth.
"[A]bout 56% of the S&P stocks are above their 50 day moving average, [but] that's down from about 92 or 93%," Chief Market Strategist David Keller at StockCharts.com told Investing.com in an interview on Friday.
But tech, given its larger weighting in the S&P 500, has cushioned the fallout, supporting the broader market.
As well as the tech, utilities, a bond proxy and defensive corner of the market, were one of the top sectors gainers on the day. This, however, is another sign that investors are growing worried about uncertainty ahead.
"I'm more concerned now by what I'm seeing by the emergence of sectors like utilities rallying on a week like this […] that speaks more to not just hiding out in Microsoft or getting defensive, but investors trying to look for higher yield opportunities to ride out uncertainty," Keller added.
Energy stocks, meanwhile, steadied but remained set for steep weekly losses following a slump in oil prices as rising Covid-19 infections and restrictions, particularly in China, have muddied the outlook on energy demand.
On the earnings front, investors digested mostly bullish quarterly reports as the earnings season winds down.
Foot Locker (NYSE:FL) second-quarter results that beat Wall Street estimates on both top and bottom lines, sending its shares more than 7% more than higher.
Deere & Company (NYSE:DE) fell 2% as its better-than-expected results were offset by worries that supply chain issues and rising input costs will continue into next year.
In other news, NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) rallied more than 5% after a disclosure that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had bought stock and call options on the chipmaker.