


NEW YORK >> U.S. stocks rallied to their best day in months on Friday as Wall Street’s roller coaster suddenly shot back upward. That still wasn’t enough to keep the U.S. market from a fourth straight losing week, its longest such streak since August.
The S&P 500 jumped 2.1% a day after closing more than 10% below its record for its first “ correction “ since 2023. The last time the index shot up that much was the day after President Donald Trump’s election, when Wall Street was focusing on the upsides of Trump’s return to the White House.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 674 points, or 1.7%, and the Nasdaq composite jumped 2.6%.
A multi-day “relief rally could be coming” after so much negativity built among investors, said Yung-Yu Ma, chief investment officer at BMO Wealth Management. Swings in sentiment don’t go full-tilt in just one direction forever, and the U.S. stock market has been tumbling quickly since setting a record less than a month ago.
One piece of uncertainty hanging over Wall Street may be clearing after the Senate made moves to prevent a possible partial shutdown of the U.S. government.
Past shutdowns have not been a huge deal for financial markets. But any reduction of uncertainty can be helpful when so much of it has been sending the U.S. stock market on big, scary swings not just day to day but also hour to hour.
To be sure, the heaviest uncertainty remains with Trump’s escalating trade war. There, the question is how much pain Trump will let the economy endure through tariffs and other policies in order to reshape the country and world as he wants. The president has said he wants manufacturing jobs back in the United States, along with a smaller U.S. government workforce and other fundamental changes.
While stock prices may be close to finishing their reset to account for tariffs set to hit in April, Ma said concerns about how big an impact cutbacks in federal spending will have on the economy are “likely to remain for some time.”
U.S. households and businesses have already reported drops in confidence because of all the uncertainties created by Trump’s barrage of on -again, off -again tariff announcements and other policies. That’s raised fears about a pullback in spending that could sap energy from the economy.
Worries look to be only worsening among U.S. households, according to a preliminary survey released Friday by the University of Michigan. Its measure of consumer sentiment sank for a third straight month, mostly because of concerns about the future rather than complaints about the present. The job market and overall economy look relatively solid at the moment.
All told, the S&P 500 rose 117.42 points to 5,638.94. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 674.62 to 41,488.19, and the Nasdaq composite rallied 451.07 to 17,754.09.
In the bond market, Treasury yields rose to recover some of their sharp recent losses. The yield on the 10-year Treasury climbed to 4.31% from 4.27% late Thursday and from 4.16% at the start of last week.