Don’t Look Now, but the Dow Is on Its Longest Weekly Winning Streak Since Last Summer

Sat Jan 19 2019
Lucy Harlow (4126 articles)
Don’t Look Now, but the Dow Is on Its Longest Weekly Winning Streak Since Last Summer

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied 1.4% Friday on encouraging news about the trade tensions between the U.S. and China, helping the benchmark stock index to close the week up for the fourth straight week, its longest weekly winning streak since August.

The Dow gained 336.25 points, or 1.4%, to 24,076.36 Friday, according to Yahoo Finance. The Nasdaq Composite advanced 72.76 points, or 1%, to 7157.23. The S&P 500 Index rose 34.75 points, or 1.3%, to 2670.71.

Earlier on Friday, the Chinese government offered to U.S. trade officials to go on a six-year buying spree to help increase imports of goods from the U.S. The move was intended to help reset the relationship between the world’s two largest economies.

By increasing the amount of goods imported from the U.S. into China by a combined value of more than $ 1 trillion over that period, China hopes to trim its trade surplus to zero dollars by 2024. China’s trade surplus with the U.S stood at $ 323 billion last year, according to Bloomberg.

The news help rally shares of core manufacturing stocks in the U.S. Caterpillar closed up 2.2%, while gained 1.6% and Deere & Co. advanced 2.8%.

“That’s the key factor,” Randy Frederick, a vice president at the Schwab Center for Financial Research told CNBC. “If we don’t get that issue resolved, the market is going to hit upside headwinds no matter what happens. If we get that issue out of the way, which will boost business and consumer confidence, there is still plenty of room for the market to do really well.”

Lucy Harlow

Lucy Harlow

Lucy Harlow is a senior Correspondent who has been reporting about Equities, Commodities, Currencies, Bonds etc across the globe for last 10 years. She reports from New York and tracks daily movement of various indices across the Globe