By Abigail Summerville and Purvi Agarwal
(Reuters) -All three of Wall Street’s main indexes registered record closing highs for a second straight day on Friday, with trading volume hitting its highest level since April, as FedEx rose after upbeat earnings.
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq notched their third straight week of gains, boosted by the Federal Reserve’s first rate cut of 2025 on Wednesday and indications of further monetary policy easing.
Volume on U.S. exchanges on Friday was 27.78 billion shares, compared with the 17.41 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days. Trading volume in early April broke U.S. records as the market was whipsawed in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff announcements.
Shares of parcel delivery company FedEx popped 2.3% after it reported quarterly profit and revenue above analyst estimates on Thursday, as cost-cutting and strength in domestic deliveries helped offset weaker international volumes.
Apple rose 3.2% following a price target raise from J.P. Morgan, while gains in Palantir Technologies and Oracle also drove the S&P 500 technology sector up 1.19%.
Seven of the 11 S&P sector indexes rose, while energy stocks were the biggest drag.
Wall Street wavered earlier in the day as investors continued to digest the Fed’s outlook and get a read on Stephen Miran, its newest governor and White House economic adviser, who spoke on CNBC on Friday morning.
“Certainly if the idea is the Fed is moving in a direction to relax the inflation target, that is definitely a recipe for running hot, and that’s good for stocks,” said Scott Ladner, chief investment officer at Horizon Investments.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 172.85 points, or 0.37%, to 46,315.27, the S&P 500 gained 32.40 points, or 0.49%, to 6,664.36 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 160.75 points, or 0.72%, to 22,631.48.
For the week, the S&P 500 rose 1.2%, the Nasdaq climbed 2.2% and the Dow added 1.05%.
The small-cap Russell 2000 index dropped 0.71% after briefly hitting an intraday record high. It notched a record close on Thursday, its first since November 2021.
“Small caps have been trading inversely with rates, and it’s just the idea of small caps benefiting disproportionately from lower interest rates,” Ladner said.
Meanwhile, Trump and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping spoke by phone, after which Trump said that the two leaders made progress on a TikTok deal and agreed to a face-to-face meeting as soon as next month in South Korea.
Also on Friday, the Senate blocked a short-term funding bill, increasing the likelihood of a U.S. government shutdown.