Dow Posts Record Closing High, Stocks Gain for 3rd Week; Dollar Dips

On the day, MSCI’s broadest gauge of global shares was flat, and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq ended lower.

Stocks came under pressure after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the U.S. central bank was “on track” to begin reducing its purchases of assets.

Intel’s stock fell 11.7% and was among the biggest drags on the S&P 500. Late Thursday, Intel reported sales that missed expectations and pointed to shortages of chips holding back sales of its flagship processors.

American Express Co’s stock gained, boosting the Dow after the company beat profit estimates for the fourth straight quarter.

Next week brings reports from several key mega-cap names including Amazon.

The dollar pared losses after Powell’s comments, but the dollar index was last down 0.10% at 93.64, and is off from a one-year high of 94.56 last week.

“There’s a bit of a positioning unwind taking place. We’ve obviously seen a firmer dollar since the September” Fed meeting, said Mazen Issa, senior FX strategist at TD Securities in New York. “That also dovetails with the seasonal tendency for the dollar to soften into the end of the month.”

Investors also digested news that China Evergrande Group appeared to avert default with a source saying it made a last-minute bond coupon payment.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 73.94 points, or 0.21%, to 35,677.02, the S&P 500 lost 4.88 points, or 0.11%, to 4,544.9 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 125.50 points, or 0.82%, to 15,090.20.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index rose 0.46% and MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe shed 0.03%.

The MSCI index posted gains for a third straight week along with the three major U.S. stock indexes.

In the U.S. bond market, yields on longer-dated U.S. Treasuries slid.

The yield on 10-year Treasury notes was down 1.6 basis points to 1.659% after rising to a five-month high of 1.7064% late Thursday.

Oil rose and ended up for the week, near multi-year highs. Brent crude futures rose 92 cents to settle at $85.53 a barrel, and registered its seventh weekly gain. U.S. crude futures gained $1.26, to settle at $83.76, and rose for a ninth straight week.

Spot gold was up 0.6% at $1,793.82 per ounce.

Among cryptocurrencies, bitcoin last fell 2.21% to $60,841.96.

For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out our economic calendar.

(Additional reporting by Simon Jessop in London, and Karen Brettell, Sinead Carew and Herbert Lash in New York and Kevin Buckland in Tokyo; Editing by Hugh Lawson Mark Potter and David Gregorio)