Financial Markets                      10/31 16:10

   

   NEW YORK (AP) -- Amazon led the U.S. stock market on Friday to the finish of 
another winning week and month.

   The S&P 500 rose 0.3% and pulled closer to its all-time high set on Tuesday. 
It closed out a third straight winning week and a sixth straight winning month, 
its longest monthly winning streak since 2021.

   The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 40 points, or 0.1%, and the Nasdaq 
composite gained 0.6%.

   Amazon led the way and jumped 9.6%. The retail giant was by far the 
strongest force lifting the market after reporting profit for the latest 
quarter that blew past analysts' expectations. CEO Andy Jassy said growth for 
its booming cloud-computing business has accelerated to a pace it hasn't seen 
since 2022.

   Amazon's massive size of roughly $2.4 trillion means its stock movements 
carry more weight on the S&P 500 than almost any other company's. Without it, 
the S&P 500 would have been down for the day.

   Another highly influential stock, Apple, had less of an effect on the market 
even though it's bigger than Amazon. The iPhone maker, which is worth more than 
$4 trillion, swung between modest gains and losses through the day before 
finishing with a dip of 0.4%.

   It likewise delivered a better profit report for the latest quarter than 
analysts expected, though by not as big a margin as Amazon did. CEO Tim Cook 
said it benefited from strong revenue for both its iPhone lineup and its 
services offerings, which include its app store.

   Elsewhere on Wall Street, online message board Reddit jumped 7.5% to erase 
losses from earlier in the week after reporting stronger profit and revenue for 
the latest quarter than analysts expected.

   Coinbase Global rose 4.6% after the crypto exchange's profit likewise topped 
expectations.

   Outside of earnings reports, Netflix added 2.7% after the video streamer 
announced a move that could make its stock price more affordable but still 
leave all its investors holding the same amount. Netflix will undergo a 
10-for-1 stock split, where it will give nine additional shares to investors 
for each they own.

   They helped offset a drop for AbbVie, which fell 4.5% even though the 
medicine maker reported stronger profit for the latest quarter than expected. 
Analysts pointed to how it's beating forecasts by less than before, and 
expectations may have been high after AbbVie's stock came into the day with a 
strong 28.4% gain for the year so far.

   The pressure is on companies broadly to deliver big growth in profits to 
justify the huge gains their stock prices have made since April. Criticism has 
been growing that the U.S. stock market has become too expensive.

   A day earlier, the S&P 500 slumped 1% as investors appeared unnerved by big 
increases in spending that Meta Platforms and Microsoft are planning as part of 
the investment spree underway in artificial-intelligence technology. Financial 
markets also appeared skeptical that President Donald Trump's trade truce with 
China would put an end to tensions between the two countries.

   Additional drops on Friday of 1.5% for Microsoft and 2.7% for Meta were the 
two heaviest weights on the U.S. market.

   All told, the S&P 500 rose 17.86 points to 6,840.20. The Dow Jones 
Industrial Average added 40.75 to 47,562.87, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 
143.81 to 23,724.96.

   In stock markets abroad, indexes dipped in Europe following a mixed finish 
in Asia.

   Stocks fell 1.4% in Hong Kong and 0.8% in Shanghai after data showed factory 
activity in China contracted in October for a seventh straight month.

   Japan's Nikkei 225, meanwhile, jumped 2.1% to another record after a report 
showed industrial production rose more in September than expected.

   In the bond market, Treasury yields eased following their spurt higher in 
the middle of the week, when Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned that 
another cut to interest rates in December "is not a foregone conclusion -- far 
from it."

   The yield on the 10-year Treasury dipped to 4.09% from 4.11% late Thursday, 
though it's still above the 3.99% level it was at before Powell's warning.

   Other central banks have halted cuts to rates or hinted at pauses recently, 
and "it seems this is it for the 2025 easing season in developed economies," 
economists at Bank of America wrote in a BofA Global Research report.

   ___

   AP Business Writers Teresa Cerojano and Matt Ott contributed.

   ---------

   itemid:3ce617f003abc24c24d2c030e6bcabf8