Wall Street ended higher on Friday as investors assessed the U.S. President’s latest remarks on China, while quarterly results from regional banks eased concerns about credit risks. The President said his proposed 100% tariff on goods from China would not be sustainable, but blamed Beijing for the latest impasse in trade talks that began with Chinese authorities tightening control over rare earth exports. Trump unveiled the new tariffs a week ago, along with new export controls on “any and all critical software,” to go into effect on November 1.
Regional bank stocks rebounded following a selloff on Thursday, when Zions Bancorporation ZION.O disclosed losses tied to two commercial and industrial loans and Western Alliance WAL.N revealed it had initiated a lawsuit alleging fraud by Cantor Group V, LLC. Truist Financial TFC.N gained 3.7% after the bank reported higher third-quarter profit. Fifth Third Bancorp FITB.O rose 1.3%, Zions shares rebounded from losses the day before to close 5.8% higher, and Western Alliance advanced 3.1%. The S&P Composite 1500 Regional Banks index .SPCOMBNKS climbed 1.8% after tumbling almost 6% the day before. The S&P 500 financial sector index .SPSY , which includes the largest U.S. banks, rose 0.8%.
Robust earnings from JPMorgan JPM.N and other big banks this week helped get the third-quarter earnings season off to an upbeat start. Analysts on average see S&P 500 earnings climbing 9.3% in the third quarter, an improvement from expectations of 8.8% at the start of October, according to LSEG I/B/E/S. Following a rally of nearly 14% in 2025, the S&P 500 is valued at 23 times expected earnings, its priciest level in five years.
The S&P 500 climbed 0.53% to end the session at 6,664.01 points. The Nasdaq gained 0.52% to 22,679.98 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.52% to 46,190.61 points. Nine of the 11 S&P 500 sector indexes rose, led by consumer staples .SPLRCS , up 1.23%. For the week, the S&P 500 gained 1.7%, the Nasdaq rose 2.1% and the Dow climbed 1.6%. The CBOE volatility index .VIX , investors’ fear gauge, dropped to 21.5 points after hitting its highest level in nearly six months at 28.99 earlier in the day.
Wall Street’s most valuable companies were mixed, with Tesla TSLA.O rising 2.5%, Apple AAPL.O adding almost 2% and Amazon AMZN.O falling 0.7%. Eli Lilly LLY.N fell 2% after the President said he would bring down prices of weight-loss drugs. State Street STT.N dropped 1.4% after the bank’s third-quarter net interest income missed estimates. Advancing issues outnumbered falling ones within the S&P 500 .AD.SPX by a 2.6-to-one ratio. The S&P 500 posted 7 new highs and 6 new lows; the Nasdaq recorded 37 new highs and 114 new lows. Volume on U.S. exchanges was relatively light, with 19.6 billion shares traded, compared with an average of 20.7 billion shares over the previous 20 sessions.
Reporting by Noel Randewich in San Francisco and Sukriti Gupta, Medha Singh and Twesha Dikshit in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar and Matthew Lewis.
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