The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose Friday, as all three major averages notched weekly gains at the end of the holiday-shortened trading week. The Dow climbed over 150 points, while the S&P 500 slipped slightly lower and the Nasdaq fell 0.5%.
Here's how the market settled to close out the week:
S&P 500 Index
Dow Jones Industrial Average
Nasdaq Composite Index
Wall Street ended the week on a high note despite the session's mixed close. The Dow added 1.78% on the week, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq were 1.5% and 0.7% higher.
Activision Blizzard
In early Black Friday headlines, online shoppers spent a record amount on Thanksgiving Day, totaling $5.29 billion, according to Adobe Analytics, marking an increase of 2.9% year-over-year. According to Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe, Thursday's record was driven by demand, not inflation.
"Given the macroeconomic headwinds and backdrop coming into the season for consumers, the big question was, 'Would the strength of discounts be able to keep demand strong and have it be stable -- on par with what we saw last year?'," Pandya said, quoted by CNBC. "What we are seeing is the discounts being strong enough to entice consumers to continue to spend."
And it seems consumers were on the hunt for a deeper discount this year, with data from advertising technology company Captify showing that Walmart
Searches for Walmart surged 386% year-over-year, topping Amazon
The National Retail Federation expects holiday sales during November and December to rise between 6% and 8% from last year. Adobe expects online sales during the same period to grew by 2.5% to 209.7 billion, compared to an 8.6% last year.
Looking ahead, market participants are expected to react to more Black Friday data out next week as they assess the health of the retail sector in response to inflation. There are also more earnings reports from companies like Kroger
