Stocks close higher, clawing back some losses from Monday’s sell-off

Stocks ticked up Friday as the stock market built on its incredible comeback from Monday’s violent rout. The broad market index ended the week just shy of completely reversing its weekly losses.

The S&P 500 advanced 0.47% to finish at 5,344.16. The Nasdaq Composite added 0.51% to close at 16,745.30. The Dow Jones Industrial Average inched up 51 points, or 0.13%, to end at 39,497.54.

Week to date, the broad market index was just 0.04% lower. During Friday’s session, it had managed to briefly turn positive for the week before losing some of its gains. Meanwhile, the blue-chip Dow and tech-heavy Nasdaq were down on the week by 0.6% and 0.18%, respectively.

This week marked the most volatile week of 2024 for the market. The Dow on Monday tumbled 1,000 points, while the S&P 500 lost 3% for its worst day since 2022. Disappointing U.S. payrolls data from the prior week and concerns the Federal Reserve was too late with rate cuts were the main culprits for the selling, along with the unwinding of a popular currency trade by hedge funds.

A trader at the New York Stock Exchange on Aug. 8, 2024.Spencer Platt / Getty Images

However, the major averages mounted a comeback, with Thursday’s encouraging weekly jobless claims number helping alleviate investors’ concerns about the U.S. economy. The S&P 500 advanced 2.3% on Thursday for its best day since November 2022, while the 30-stock Dow surged roughly 683 points. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite added nearly 2.9%.

At the Monday lows, the S&P 500 was down nearly 10% from its recent all-time high. The Nasdaq Composite’s pullback reached full-fledged correction territory of beyond 10%. The Cboe Volatility Index — used by Wall Street to measure fear — reached heights last seen during the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Great Financial Crisis.

But investors stepped in to buy the dip on the notion another crisis or recession was not on the horizon. The week’s earlier losses were tied more to hedge funds unwinding a long-time bet on a cheap Japanese yen rather than fundamental threats to the economy.

It is not just equity markets that have had a volatile week. The 10-year Treasury yield fell below 3.70% at one point, only to retake 4% on Thursday. It traded around 3.94% on Friday.

Volatile trading activity is on par for the late summer, when there is not much information flow and earnings season starts to unwind, and is not indicative of a worsening economy, said Infrastructure Capital Advisors CEO Jay Hatfield. Much of the sell-offs in the market stemmed from a “hedge fund theme” rather than longer-term investors, according to Hatfield.

“So it makes sense that we bounce back. A volatile sell-off and bounce back is just normal August [and] September behavior; thin markets, hedge funds gone wild and irrational moves down. The recent market activity has no bearing on our long term outlook,” Hatfield added.