U.S. stocks extended their rally on Friday, marking the longest winning streak for equity markets since November 2021. Nasdaq led the way with a 2.1% rise to mark its first finish above 13,000 since April 25 while the S&P 500 gained 1.7% to secure a fourth consecutive weekly gain. The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged by 420 points to mark a 1.3% increase.
Among this week’s major winners was Apple with a 2% gain. This came after a Bloomberg report revealed that the company is expected to sustain its iPhone sales during the second half of 2022 following a market slowdown. As per the report, Apple projects that 220 million iPhones will be manufactured this year.
Electric-vehicle maker Rivian Automotive also appears on investors’ radars. Despite reporting a wider Q2 loss than analysts’ predicted, Rivian revealed that it expects production levels to remain stable throughout the rest of the year.
Inflation concerns seem to be on the decline as markets appear to be stabilizing going into the later stages of 2022. The consumer price index (CPI), which remained flat over the last month, gained a lower-than-expected 8.5% annually on Wednesday while the producer price index (PPI) showed on Thursday that prices had fallen by 0.5% from the previous month.