U.S. stocks rose on Friday as Amazon delivered a far stronger profit report than analysts had forecast, giving Wall Street fresh momentum after a shaky session the day before. The S&P 500 gained 0.6%, bringing it back close to the record high set earlier this week and leaving it on track for a third straight winning week and a sixth consecutive winning month, a run not seen since 2021. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up about 65 points (roughly 0.1%) and the Nasdaq composite climbed around 1.1%, reflecting the renewed strength in technology shares.
Big Tech Drives Indexes Higher
The rally was driven mainly by Amazon, whose shares jumped more than 11% after the company said profit surged and growth in its cloud-computing unit had reaccelerated to its fastest pace since 2022. Because Amazon is worth roughly 2.4 trillion US-dollars, its move carried outsized weight in the S&P 500, accounting for much of the index’s advance. Apple, even larger at over 4 trillion US-dollars, traded little changed as investors parsed its own better-than-expected results. Gains in other growth names such as Netflix, which announced a 10-for-1 stock split, and rebounds in Reddit and Coinbase after strong earnings also helped offset weakness in parts of the healthcare sector, where AbbVie fell despite topping forecasts.
Skepticism Over Trump–China Truce
The advance came even as traders continued to reassess the market impact of President Donald Trump’s latest trade pause with China. Stocks had fallen on Thursday after investors concluded that the agreement, while a step away from escalation, left many tariffs in place and did not fully resolve the disputes that have unsettled global commerce for years. Market participants said the deal still depends on both Washington and Beijing following through on pledges tied to rare earth exports, fentanyl precursors, and purchases of U.S. farm goods, any of which could become a new flashpoint.
That uncertainty kept pressure on some of the biggest U.S. technology companies, including Microsoft and Meta Platforms, which were already under scrutiny for ramping up capital spending on artificial-intelligence infrastructure. Analysts noted that after this year’s large run-up in equity prices, investors now expect corporate earnings to stay strong and geopolitical risks to stay contained; any sign that tariffs could return to the forefront may challenge those assumptions.
Global Markets Track U.S. Moves
Overseas trading reflected the same mix of optimism and caution. Major indexes in Europe slipped as investors there digested the weaker U.S. close a day earlier and weighed how a limited U.S.–China détente might affect regional exporters, especially automakers and industrial firms that sell heavily into Asian supply chains.
Across Asia, markets were mostly lower. Shares in Hong Kong fell about 1.4% and Shanghai retreated roughly 0.8% after official data showed Chinese factory activity contracted for a seventh straight month and at the fastest pace in six months, underlining that China’s manufacturing recovery remains fragile. By contrast, Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumped more than 2% to another record after figures showed September industrial production beat expectations, giving Tokyo equities an additional domestic tailwind.
Still, traders in both regions said they would be watching for further details on US-China trade contacts, noting that recent tariff episodes have quickly spilled over into currency, commodity and shipping markets.
Bonds Ease After Fed Warning
In the U.S. Treasury market, yields edged lower as investors reconsidered how far the Federal Reserve will go with its 2025 rate-cut cycle. The yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to about 4.09% from 4.11% late Thursday, though it remained above the 3.99% level seen before Fed Chair Jerome Powell warned that a further reduction in December was “not a foregone conclusion – far from it.” That message echoed signals from other major central banks that the bulk of this year’s monetary easing may already be behind them, meaning borrowing costs could stay elevated for longer than equity markets had built in.
Strategists at several Wall Street firms said the modest pullback in yields was nevertheless welcome after this week’s jump, which had supported the dollar and pressured some emerging-market currencies. A steadier bond market, they added, gives stocks more room to react to company-specific news, rather than to swings in interest-rate expectations.