US close: Nasdaq-100, S&P 500 hit new records

Wall Street's main market gauges were little changed heading into the Memorial Day weekend and the end of the month, following the release of slightly mixed economic data.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day lower by just 0.01% or 2.67 points at 21,080.28, while the S&P 500 was up by 0.01% or 0.75 points to 2,415.82 and ahead by 1.4% for the week just ended - while also notching up a fresh record close (but not on an intra-day basis) in the process.

Despite the new record close for the S&P 500, some market commentary highlighted how so-called 'short interest' on that stock benchmark continued to climb, rising by 0.3 percentage points during the week to 3.9% - although it remained well below the record readings seen at the start of 2016.

In parallel, the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.08% or 4.94 points to 6,210.19, alongside gains of 0.17% for the Nasdaq-100 on Friday.

For the week as a whole the Nasdaq-100 was 2.4% higher and at a new record close itself.

From a sector standpoint, the best performing areas of the market on Friday were: Gold mining (1.79%), Automobiles (1.50%) and Tires (1.41%).

Meanwhile, oil prices reversed heavy losses to trade a little higher, with West Texas Intermediate up by a nickel to $49.80 a barrel. Prices had fallen sharply after the Opec meeting in Vienna resulted in a nine-month extension of the previously agreed 1.8m barrel-a-day production cut, just as markets had anticipated.

Perhaps the most oft-quoted gauge of stockmarket volatility continued to slide towards its record lows, slipping 1.80% to 9.81.

America's gross domestic product expanded at an upwardly revised pace of 1.2% during the first three months of 2017, revised data showed.

The Department of Commerce had initially pegged the rate of growth at 0.7% (consensus: 0.9%).

Orders for durable goods meanwhile fell by 0.7% on the month in April, which was better than the 1.5% drop economists had been expecting. Significantly, growth for the prior month was revised up to show a rise of 2.3% instead of the 0.9% increase originally estimated.

Those mark-ups to the March data were on account of a sharp upwards revision to volatile data for aircraft orders for that month.

Nevertheless, core capital goods orders - perhaps the key gauge contained in that report - were flat in April (consensus: 0.5%).

The mood of US consumers was more buoyant in May, with the University of Michigan's sentiment index edging higher from 97.0 for April to 97.1.

That was lower than a preliminary reading of 97.5 but the expectations subindex improved from 87.0 to 87.7, a positive sign.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year US Treasury note slipped by one basis point to 2.25%.

Shares in Deckers Outdoor surged 18.81% after the footwear designer surprised markets with first quarter earnings per share of 11 cents, which was far in excess of the -6 cent loss expected. The company's sales and full-year EPS guidance were also better-than-expected.

Stock in discount fashion retailer Big Lots also gained after posting a first quarter EPS of $1.15, soundly beating estimates on the street for 99 cents.

However, its top line figure came in at $1.30bn, which was a shade below the $1.31bn analysts had anticipated.

Dow Jones - Risers

Walt Disney Co. (DIS) $108.41 1.06%
Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) $105.66 0.61%
E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (DD) $77.85 0.59%
3M Co. (MMM) $200.67 0.57%
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) $69.96 0.49%
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) $223.53 0.48%
Nike Inc. (NKE) $52.59 0.46%
Procter & Gamble Co. (PG) $87.25 0.45%
Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) $31.50 0.19%
McDonald's Corp. (MCD) $149.86 0.05%