Saturday, January 30, 2016
Associated Press
NEW YORK
Stocks soared on the last trading day of January, with Microsoft, Visa and other tech stocks making the biggest gains in a broad market rally Friday.
Indexes rose throughout the day and finished with their biggest gains in about five months. Asian stocks jumped after the Bank of Japan moved to stimulate the economy, and European markets also rose. In the U.S., tech stocks climbed after strong quarterly results from Microsoft and Visa. Materials companies and banks also made large gains, and the price of oil rose for the fourth day in a row.
The U.S. government said Friday that the economy slowed in the fourth quarter, a possibility that had worried investors. But its estimate of the country’s gross domestic product was about equal to analysts’ forecasts and didn’t hurt stocks.
The Dow Jones industrial average surged 396.66 points, or 2.5 percent, to 16,466.30. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 46.88 points, or 2.5 percent, to 1,940.24, as more than 480 of its component stocks rose. The Nasdaq composite index jumped 107.27 points, or 2.4 percent, to 4,613.95.
Stocks made some big gains in the past two weeks, but still finished January with hefty losses.
Microsoft added $3.04, or 5.8 percent, to $55.09 after its profit and revenue beat expectations. The tech giant posted strong results from its cloud computing business and the unit that sells PC software and Surface tablets and Xbox game consoles.
Visa and MasterCard both rose after reporting solid results. Visa climbed $5.16, or 7.4 percent, to $74.49, and MasterCard picked up $5.60, or 6.7 percent, to $89.03.
E-commerce company Amazon took its largest one-day slide in more than a year. Amazon’s quarterly profit more than doubled, but it still fell short of Wall Street’s forecasts because of increased costs. Some of those related to its Fulfillment by Amazon service, which handles shipping for sellers and makes them eligible for Amazon Prime shipping. The stock lost $48.35, or 7.6 percent, to $587.
Xerox said it will split into two publicly traded companies after pressure from activist investor Carl Icahn. Its stock gained 52 cents, or 5.6 percent, to $9.75.