Stocks posted strong gains as Wall Street put the finishing touches on its best monthly performance of the year.
The S&P 500 rose 0.6% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.4%. Both indices closed November with their best monthly performances of the year. The Nasdaq added 0.8%.
Friday was a abbreviated trading daywith stocks closing at 1 p.m. ET and the bond market an hour later.
Investors were looking to see how much shoppers would be willing to spend on holiday gifts, and predicted that shoppers would could break spending records in 2024, the typical consumer is expected to spend more than $1,000, an increase of 14% from last year. Black Friday unofficially kicked off the holiday shopping season, even though retailers had been offering early deals for weeks.
Macy’s and Best Buy each gained about 2%, while Apple rose 1.1%. The tech giant hopes the recently added artificial intelligence features will be enough to entice consumers to treat themselves or their loved ones to a new iPhone for the holidays.
“Black Friday officially kicks off an important holiday season for Apple, as its flagship iPhone 16 represents the start of the Apple Intelligence launch with the release of version 18.2 likely this week next time,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote in a Nov. 29 research note.
He added: “Our view is that Apple’s deployment of AI over the coming months will mark the start of a new era for Cupertino, when ultimately hundreds of apps based on AI will be built by developers on the building blocks of Apple intelligence.”
The Dow and the S&P 500 in November
The Dow rose 7.5% in November, by far its best month of 2024. Walt Disney Co. had the largest percentage gain for the month at 22.1%, but the consumer-weighted index Price also got a boost from Goldman Sachs, up 17.5% to $608.57 and Salesforce, up more than 13% to $329.99.
The S&P 500 gained 5.7% this month, driven by Tesla and other stocks boosted by Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election.
Discover Financial Services tops a list of financial stocks that had a good November, up nearly 23% for the month despite a slight loss on Friday. Investors say the credit card company’s merger with Capital One is more likely to happen under a Trump administration and that, overall, the financial services industry faces less restrictive oversight.
Tesla shares rose 3.7% on Friday and posted a monthly gain of more than 38%. The electric vehicle maker is expected to benefit from CEO Elon Musk’s support of Trump.
Musk also gave Hasbro shares a boost after sparking takeover speculation when he asked in an article on X how much the toy and game company was worth. Hasbro, owner of the Dungeon & Dragons role-playing game, rose 2%.
Bond yields fell, with the 10-year Treasury yield falling to 4.19%.
Bitcoin ends the month near $100,000
Bitcoin, which recently hit $100,000 before falling back, briefly climbed back above $98,000 but was recently trading around $97,300.
Global markets have mostly fallen. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index fell 0.4% after the government said inflation in Tokyo, seen as an indicator of national trends, was 2.6% in November, down from 1.8% in last month, mainly due to a surge in fresh food prices.
Chinese markets have progressed. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index gained 0.3%. Meanwhile, the Shanghai Composite index rose 0.9%. Gains in retailer stocks boosted market gains after a two-day meeting in Beijing focused on promoting consumption ended on Thursday.
