The Dow Jones and S&P 500 reached record highs this week as a number of positive third-quarter earnings surprises boosted investor sentiment.
Rising energy prices are fast becoming a global problem with soaring demand driven by the robust economic recovery following the pandemic.
Equity markets rebounded this week following a tough September month.
In a volatile week major U.S. indices overcame an early sell-off on Monday to end the week modestly higher.
U.S. inflation was front-of-mind amongst investors this week, with the hope that the August data release would provide some insight into the Federal Reserve’s policy meeting next week.
On Monday, the S&P 500 index reached a new record high of 4480, which is more than double its COVID intraday trough of 2192 on 23 March 2020.
U.S. equities rounded off the week with modest gains, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 ending stronger while the tech-heavy Nasdaq ended marginally weaker.
Stocks touched new highs again this week, with the latest U.S. jobs report showing that the economy added 943,000 jobs in July.