S&P 500 Claims 5,000 As Tech Soars, Bitcoin Rockets Above $47,000: What's Driving Markets Friday?

Wall Street is poised to wrap another week of gains, with the S&P 500 index surpassing the 5,000 mark and the Nasdaq approaching 18,000 points. For the two indices, this marks the fifth consecutive week in the green, the 14th positive week out of the last 15, indicative of the impressive rally fueled by optimism surrounding artificial intelligence.

Shares of NVIDIA Corp. NVDA are already up nearly 50% since the beginning of the year, with the semiconductor giant surpassing the $1.8-trillion market capitalization mark.

Overall, the Magnificent Seven rose to a combined market cap of $13.2 trillion, almost half the size of the rest of the 493 stocks within the S&P 500.

The Russell 2000 index of small caps has again reached the 2,000 mark, outperforming large-cap peers.

Data-wise, no major headline emerged from the Consumer Price Index revision Friday, with the fourth-quarter 2023 numbers remaining broadly unchanged.

Bitcoin BTC/USD took the spotlight, with the major cryptocurrency rising more than 5% to over $47,000 in its biggest weekly rally in four months. Newly launched Bitcoin spot ETFs have accumulated over 200,000 coins worth $9.56 billion since their debut.

Friday's Performance In Major Indices, ETFs

Major Indices	Price	1-day %
Russell 2000	2,000.69	1.3%
Nasdaq 100	17,943.59	0.9%
S&P 500	5,019.03	0.4%
Dow Jones	38,643.24	-0.2%

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY was 0.4% higher to $500.44, the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average DIA eased 0.2% to $386.53 and the tech-heavy Invesco QQQ Trust QQQ rose 0.8% to $436.72, according to Benzinga Pro data.

Sector-wise, the Technology SPDR Select Sector Fund XLK outperformed, up 1.3%, while the Energy SPDR Select Sector Fund XLY lagged, down 1.4%.

Industry-wise, the VanEck Semiconductor ETF SMH surged 1.9%, while the Invesco Solar ETF TAN rocketed 3.3%.

Friday’s Stock Movers

• Enphase Energy Inc. ENPH rose over 6%, capitalizing on a bullish momentum following the company’s positive outlook for 2024. Peer First Solar Inc. FSLR also rose by nearly 6%.
• New York Community Bancorp NYCB rallied 11% after company executives and board members bought nearly $1 million of the battered stock.
• Expedia Group Inc. EXPE tumbled nearly 20%, despite beating both revenue and profit estimates last quarter. The move was sparked by a downgrade by Bank of America amid softer-than-expected fourth-quarter bookings and first-quarter 2024 expected growth rate.
• Cloudfare Inc. NET rose over 20%, following stronger-than-expected results last quarter.
• Other companies reacting to earnings were PepsiCo Inc. PEP, down 2.7%, Pinterest Inc. PINS, down 12%, Bill Holdings Inc. BILL, down 11% and Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. TTWO, down 7%.

Photo via Pixabay.