Wall Street closes higher as Apple, tech rally squashes virus fears

Apple and other tech stocks again rode to Wall Street’s rescue on Friday, lifting the main indexes more than 1%. Investors started buying beaten-down shares after the Nasdaq entered corrective territory last week and the S&P 500 briefly broke that barrier earlier this week.

Both the Dow and S&P 500 posted their fourth straight weekly declines, the longest weekly losing streak since August 2019. The tech-heavy Nasdaq, however, closed higher for the week after falling the previous three.

Herbert Lash for Reuters:

Investors are looking at the long term and believe technology remains the investment of choice, said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at OANDA in New York.

“It’s dip buying,” Moya said. “When you look at the correction that we’ve seen in these tech giants, people are still going to want to hold U.S. equities. The reality is that 2021 is going to be a much higher stock market and you’re probably going to see tech still lead the way.”

Shares of tech mega-caps Apple Inc, Microsoft Corp, and Amazon.com Inc led the way, followed by Facebook Inc and Nvidia Corp, rising at least 2.2%.

Unofficially, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 360.42 points, or 1.34%, to 27,175.86, the S&P 500 gained 51.92 points, or 1.60%, to 3,298.51 and the Nasdaq Composite added 241.30 points, or 2.26%, to 10,913.56.

MacDailyNews Take: It’s alwaYs nice to see Apple’s share price solidly in the green heading into the weekend.

Beloved intern, do your duty! Prost, everyone!