Apple was up 2.4 percent to $114.44, its fourth straight day of gains, after the company said the first batch of the iPhone 7 Plus sold out. United States crude fell 1.6% Friday. The Federal Reserve and Bank of Japan meet separately next week, while United Kingdom policy makers maintained the BOE’s asset-purchase target.
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The S&P 500 index gained 1 percent to 2,147.30 at 4 p.m.in NY, after a 0.1 percent slide on Wednesday left the index at its lowest level since July 7.
“Perhaps the final game-changer could be U.S. CPI inflation, released [premarket Friday]”. Economists had expected prices to inch up by 0.1 percent.
In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index ended the session with a gain of 0.6% from the previous close. Siemens climbed 1.6 percent after Chief Executive Officer Joe Kaeser said Europe’s biggest engineering company may beat its earnings forecast for the fiscal year ending this month.
The energy index was the second biggest gainer, boosted by as oil prices rebound after two days of steep declines.
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 1.79-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.18-to-1 ratio favored decliners. The spread between the two securities reached the widest in more than six weeks on Wednesday.
“There’s nothing in these numbers that tells us rates should be heading up”, New Jersey-based Themis Trading managing director and equity trader Mark Kepner told Bloomberg. “Yields are moving higher overseas and that means there is demand that’s going to come out of our bond market and maybe our stock market because of those investors that have been trying for yield that will leave”.
“More importantly than what they do is what is said following the meetings and their expectations”.
Monsanto (MON.N) agreed to be bought by Bayer (BAYGn.DE), but its stock rose just 1.4 per cent to $107.60, well below the offer of $128, due to concerns about regulatory approvals. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index lost 6 points, or 0.3 percent, to 2,141 and the Nasdaq composite lost 2 points, or 0.1 percent, to 5,246.
The technology index on Friday dropped 0.33 percent, pulled down by Apple’s 0.56-percent decline and Oracle’s 4.75-percent drop following weak quarterly profit.
After the European Central Bank and the Bank of England kept monetary policies unchanged, attention is turning to the Fed’s meeting next week. As a result, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, edged down by less than a basis point to 1.701%.
The financial sector also fell 0.9%, with losses shares across the banking, insurance and capital markets industries.
Crude climbed, led by gasoline’s biggest jump since May, after the restart of a pipeline carrying fuel to New York Harbor was delayed.
The dollar rose against most other major currencies (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/dollar-heads-to-the-sidelines- ahead-of-fed-and-bank-of-japan-meetings-2016-09-16), contributing to weakness in gold, which marked a seventh drop in eight sessions and settled at its lowest level in three months (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gold-dips-on-pace-for- weekly-loss-as-inflation-data-looms-2016-09-16). Meanwhile a weekly report on jobless claims ticked higher but remained at historically low levels.
October West Texas Intermediate crude rose 33 cents, or 0.8%, to settle at $43.91 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after tallying a loss of almost 6% in the past two sessions.
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In corporate news, Wells Fargo & Co. slid 6.8 percent amid controversy surrounding alleged fraud at the company.
