Shares on Wall Street finished the month of Jul on Fri with their third consecutive trading session of gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 315.50 pts or 0.97% to close at 32,845.13. The broader S&P 500 index rose 1.42%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite advanced 1.88%. The small-cap Russell 2000 gained 0.65%.
All of the major averages had their best month in 2022. The Dow rose to a 6.73% gain for Jul. The S&P 500 added 9.11% for the month. The Nasdaq Composite was up 12.35%.
Mega cap tech stocks rose on Fri, including Apple (AAPL US, +3.28%), Microsoft (MSFT US, +1.57%), Amazon (AMZN US, +10.36%), Alphabet (GOOGL US, +1.84%), NVidia (NVDA US, +1.00%), with the exception of Meta Platforms (META US, -1.01%).
Exxon Mobil (XOM US, +4.63%) and Chevron (CVX US, +8.90%) reported blockbuster record quarterly earnings.
Bucking the trend, shares of video-streaming platform operator, Roku (ROKU US, -23.07%) plunged last Fri after it said that a slowdown in TV advertising spending led to weaker-than-expected 2Q22 results and 3Q22 revenue forecast.
Shares of US-listed Alibaba (BABA US, -11.12%) plunged after being added to a list of firms facing US delisting for failing to provide access to audits.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note slipped 2.72 basis points (bps) to 2.6487%, while the yield on the 2-year Treasuries rose 2.23 bps to 2.8844%.
The front-month Brent and WTI futures closed up $2.87 at US$110.01/bbl and $2.20 at US$98.62/bbl respectively. Crude oil futures are down about 1% in early trade this morning (Mon), after China posted weak manufacturing data.
The ICE dollar index (DXY), which measures the strength of the greenback against a basket of currencies, fell 0.42% to 105.903.
The most actively traded US gold futures (Dec) contracts settled up $12.60, or 0.7%, at US$1,781.80/oz. September silver, which is the most actively traded silver futures, rose 32.9 cents, or 1.7%, to end at US$20.197/oz.
European equity markets finished higher on Fri. The UK FTSE gained 1.06%, France's CAC 40 rose 1.72 %, while the German DAX advanced 1.52%