The two biggest US indices finished at records on Friday and for the month of October, with the Dow Jones and S&P 500 both gaining 0.2% and the Nasdaq adding 0.3% to finish the week.
Among the biggest contributors was an unexpected fall in the bond rate, the opposite of what has been occurring in Australia during the week.
Over the five days it was a similar story with earnings season powering the key indices higher, up 0.4%, 1.3% and 2.7% respectively with the Nasdaq benefitting from strong reports by Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT).
Across the month, the indices added 4%, 5% and 6%, respectively, the best October in 6 years.
Some 80% of companies have beaten analysts forecasts, a record rate, which means earnings are catching up to what many considered an overvalued market.
Amazon & Apple miss expectations
This came despite two of the largest companies in the world missing expectations on Friday, with Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) both falling around 2%.
In Amazon’s case, it was the growing threat of supply chain issues, despite the company controlling most of its network, and a weaker earnings result due to labour shortages and rising costs across its network. Guidance was also softer than expected.
In Apple’s case, the short-term semiconductor shortage appears to be biting, after the company delivered a rare revenue miss, reaching US$83 billion as lockdowns ended.
Owen Rask & Anirban Mahanti discuss both of these quarterly reports and more on the latest episode of The Australian Investors Podcast.
US stock market movers
Here’s how other popular US stocks performed on Friday to close out the week.
- Atlassian (NASDAQ: TEAM) up 9.8%
- eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) up 6.0%
- Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) up 3.4%
- Roku (NASDAQ: ROKU) down 4.9%
- Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) down 6.3%
- Zendesk (NYSE: ZEN) down 14.5%
Back home on the ASX, the S&P/ASX 200 (ASX: XJO) is set to follow US markets higher this morning. For all the latest, check out my ASX 200 morning report.