NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street cruised to the finish of a winning week on Friday after banks recovered some of their sharp losses from the day before.
The S&P 500 rose 0.5%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 238 points, or 0.5%, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 0.5%.
The gains capped the best week for the S&P 500 since early August, but it was a roller-coaster ride. Indexes careened through several jarring swings as worries built about the financial health of small and midsized banks, as well as the souring trade relationship between the United States and China.
Some of the nervousness around U.S.-China trade tensions eased on Friday after President Donald Trump said that very high tariffs he threatened to put on Chinese imports are not sustainable.
Trump also told Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” that he would meet with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, at an upcoming conference in South Korea. That’s counter to an earlier, angry posting he made on social media, where he said there seemed to be “no reason” for such a meeting.
Bank stocks, meanwhile, stabilized on Friday after several reported stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected, including Truist Financial, Fifth Third Bancorp and Huntington Bancshares. That helped steady the group, a day after tumbling on worries about potentially bad loans.
The two banks at the center of Thursday’s action also rose to trim some of their sharp losses.
Zions Bancorp., which is charging off $50 million of loans where it found “apparent misrepresentations and contractual defaults” by the borrowers, climbed 5.8% following its 13.1% loss.
Western Alliance Bancorp, which is suing a borrower due to allegations of fraud, rose 3.1% after its 10.8% fall on Thursday.
Scrutiny is rising on the quality of loans that banks and other lenders have broadly made following last month’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing of First Brands Group, a supplier of aftermarket auto parts.
One of the financial firms that could feel pain because of First Brands’ bankruptcy, Jefferies Financial Group, rose 5.9% Friday. It had come into the day with a loss of roughly 30% since mid-September.
The question is whether the lenders’ problems are just a collection of one-offs or a signal of something larger threatening the industry. Uncertainty is high following a long stretch where many borrowers were able to stay in business, even with the weight of higher interest rates. And with prices soaring to records for all kinds of investments, the appetite for risk may have gotten too high.
