Stock market today: Wall Street gains ground as it heads for a winning week

Stocks rose on Wall Street in afternoon trading Friday, keeping the market on track for its fifth straight gain.

The S&P 500 was up 0.2% and was solidly on track for a weekly gain that will erase most of last week's loss.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 333 points, or 0.8%, and the Nasdaq composite was essentially flat with a gain of less than 0.1% as of 3:07 p.m. Eastern.

Markets have been volatile over the last few weeks, losing ground in the runup to elections in November, then surging following Donald Trump's victory, before falling again. The S&P 500 has been steadily rising throughout this week to within close range of its record.

“Overall, market behavior has normalized following an intense few weeks,” said Mark Hackett, chief of investment research at Nationwide, in a statement.

Several retailers jumped after giving Wall Street encouraging financial updates.

Gap soared 10.8% after handily beating analysts' third-quarter earnings and revenue expectations, while raising its own revenue forecast for the year. Discount retailer Ross Stores rose 1.5% after raising its earnings forecast for the year.

EchoStar fell 2.4% after DirecTV called off its purchase of that company's Dish Network unit.

Smaller company stocks had some of the biggest gains. The Russell 2000 index rose 1.8%.

A majority of stocks in the S&P 500 were gaining ground, but those gains were kept in check by slumps for several big technology companies.

Nvidia fell 3.3%. Its pricey valuation makes it among the heaviest influences on whether the broader market gains or loses ground. The company has grown into a nearly $3.6 trillion behemoth because of demand for its chips used in artificial-intelligence technology.

Intuit, which makes TurboTax and other accounting software, fell 5.6%. It gave investors a quarterly earnings forecast that fell short of analysts’ expectations.

Facebook owner Meta Platforms fell 0.8% following a decision by the Supreme Court to allow a multibillion-dollar class action investors’ lawsuit to proceed against the company. It stems from the privacy scandal involving the Cambridge Analytica political consulting firm.

European markets closed mostly higher and Asian markets ended mixed. Crude oil prices rose.

Treasury yields held relatively steady in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.41% from 4.42% late Thursday.

In the crypto market, Bitcoin hovered around $99,000, according to CoinDesk. It has more than doubled this year and first surpassed the $99,000 level on Thursday.

Retailers remained a big focus for investors this week amid close scrutiny on consumer spending habits headed into the holiday shopping season. Walmart, the nation's largest retailer, reported a quarter of strong sales and gave investors an encouraging financial forecast. Target, though, reported weaker earnings than analysts' expected and its forecast disappointed Wall Street.

Consumer spending has fueled economic growth, despite a persistent squeeze from inflation and high borrowing costs. Inflation has been easing and the Federal Reserve has started trimming its benchmark interest rates. That is likely to help relieve pressure on consumers, but any major shift in spending could prompt the Fed to reassess its path ahead on interest rates. Also, any big reversals on the rate of inflation could curtail spending.

Consumer sentiment remains strong, according to the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index. It revised its latest figure for November to 71.8 from an initial reading of 73 earlier this month, though economists expected a slight increase. It's still up from 70.5 in October.

The survey also showed that consumers' inflation expectations for the year ahead fell slightly to 2.6%, which is the lowest reading since December of 2020.

Wall Street will get another update on how consumers feel when the business group The Conference Board releases its monthly consumer confidence survey on Tuesday.

A key inflation update will come on Wednesday when the U.S. releases its October personal consumption expenditures index. The PCE is the Fed's preferred measure of inflation and this will be the last PCE reading prior to the central bank's meeting in December.