U.S. stocks moved cautiously higher Friday, with the technology sector rising after shares of two heavyweights — Google parent Alphabet Inc. and Netflix Inc. — responded positively to corporate news.How are stocks trading?
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
+0.32%
erased an early decline to rise 27 points, or 0.1%, to 33,072.
The S&P 500
SPX,
+0.90%
was up 20 points, or 0.5%, to 3,919.
The Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
+1.53%
advanced 107 points, or 1%, to 10,960.
On Thursday, the Dow industrials tumbled 252.40 points, or 0.8%, to turn negative on the year. The S&P 500 fell 0.8% and the Nasdaq Composite shed 1%,. The session marked the third-straight loss for the S&P 500 and the Dow industrials.
What’s driving markets? All three indexes were facing weekly losses. Investors have been dogged this week by mixed signals on the economy’s strength ahead of a Federal Reserve policy meeting in early February. The S&P 500 faltered this week after moving above the 4,000 level. “Overall, the SPX (S&P 500) is in no-mans land, stuck between 4100 resistance and 3700 support, all within an ongoing downtrend with modest signs of internal momentum,” said Jeff deGraaf, chairman and head of technical research at Renaissance Macro, in a Friday note. “There’s little conviction in the market, but those who have it seem to have a bearish bias not justified with the tape’s action or conditional factors,” he wrote. Need to Know: ‘Overbought and overpriced’: This investor sees a bubble popping for one popular group of stocks. In economic news, U.S. existing-home sales fell 1.5% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.02 million in December, the National Association of Realtors said Friday. That was the 11th straight monthly decline in existing-home sales. The losing streak is the longest since NAR began tracking sales in 1999. Economists polled by the Wall Street Journal were expecting existing-home sales to drop to 3.95 million. “Economic data from the U.S. this week has been far less promising,” said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst, at OANDA in a note Friday. “Rather than focus on disinflation and the labour market, it’s been other economic indicators and earnings that have taken the spotlight and it hasn’t been great.” Philadelphia Federal Reserve President Patrick Harker said he expects to see “a few mo …