US stock market logs best week of the year as recession fears fade

Wall Street continued with its surge on Friday, August 16, with all the three main indices - Nasdaq Composite, Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 - settling in the green. This wrapped up the best week of the year for the US stock market.

On Friday, the indices recorded their seventh consecutive day of rise, with Dow Jones Industrial Average ending 0.24% higher at 40,659.76.

The broader S&P 500 rose 0.2% to 5,554.25, whereas the tech-heavy Nasdaq closed 0.21% at 17,631.72.

Wall Street's best week of 2024

The weekly gains, in percentage terms, was the sharpest in 2024 so far. S&P 500 rose 3.9% on weekly basis, which is the highest since November 2023. Nasdaq surged 5.2% as compared to the preceding week, and Dow Jones jumped by 2.9%.

Among the biggest gainers of the week was Nvidia, which advanced by more than 18%. Other tech stocks also gained significantly, with Apple and Microsoft climbing 4% and 3%, respectively.

Notably, the US market witnessed one of its most severe selloffs in the first week of August, after unemployment rose by 4.3% in July -- the sharpest since October 2021. The weekly jobless claim filings at the end of July had risen to 240,750, which was the highest in a year.

This led to some commentators opining that the Federal Reserve is already late in initiating its rate cut cycle, and the US economy could be headed towards depression.

Data related to the weekly unemployment filings, released on Thursday, also eased the market sentiment as the weekly jobless claims dropped to 227,000, lower than the Reuters' estimate of 235,000.