By Yasin Ebrahim
Investing.com - The Dow rebounded Friday, following a rout a day earlier as upbeat quarterly earnings lifted investor sentiment at a time when surging Covid-19 cases threaten the economic recovery.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.18%, or 343 points. The S&P 500 was up 1.01%, while the Nasdaq Composite added 0.52%.
As the curtain on quarterly earnings closes, a wave of better-than-expected reports from a string of companies including Disney and Cisco underpinned investor sentiment.
Dow component Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS) reported a narrower-than-expected loss as well as subscriber numbers that topped Wall Street expectations, sending its shares more than 1% higher.
Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO), meanwhile, beat Wall Street estimates as the work from home trend continued to boost product demand. Its shares rose 8%.
DraftKings (NASDAQ:DKNG) rose more than 3% after rolling out better-than-expected guidance as the return of major sports boosted customer engagement and quarterly results.
Sentiment on semiconductor stocks was handed a boost thanks to upbeat commentary from Applied Materials (NASDAQ:AMAT) following better-than-expected third-quarter earnings.
RBC lifted its price target on Applied Materials to $82, from $75, citing the "solid beat and raise." The bank said it expects to see "the firm gain market share and beat consensus expectation for fiscal 2021" amid a ramp-up in memory production.
The rise in semis added to gains in the broader tech sector even as the Fab 5 stocks traded mix.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), and Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) were about unchanged on the day, while Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) traded higher.
The move higher in the broader market comes in the wake of concerns about the impact on the economy of growing restrictions to curb the surge in cases as New York City is reportedly looking to shut schools as early as next week.
Cases in the U.S. surged above a record 160,000 cases on Thursday, while hospitalizations climbed to a record 67,096, according to the Covid Tracking Project.
In other news, Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) hit a record intraday high after the company said its venture capital arm would be folded back into the business to focus on strategic investments.