The U.S. market didn’t need candy to have a sweet Halloween, as stocks jumped across the board Friday after positive economic news out of Japan inspired a surge in the Asian markets.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average kicked off Friday by soaring to a new intraday record high of 17,395, topping the previous record – set September 19 – by 45 points. The blue-chip index finished the day up 195 points, or 1.1%, to set a new record close of 17,390. The S&P 500 also set new intraday highs and finished with a record close at 2,018, rising 1.2% to round out the month of October.
The Nasdaq composite also finished the week on an upswing, rising 1.4% to 4,631 points and its best mark since 2000. The tech-heavy index had the best month of the three major indices, gaining 3.2% in a turbulent October. The Dow Jones, which at one point this month erased all of its gains for the year, ended up gaining 2% in October while the S&P 500 was up 2.4% for the month.
The Bank of Japan said early Friday that it will increase its monetary stimulus program in an attempt to revive that country’s economy. The news drove the Nikkei 225 up by 4.8%, hitting a seven-year high, while also seemingly offering at least some relief to U.S. investors’ concerns over the future of the global economy. The news of Japan’s stimulus also comes at the end of a week that saw the U.S. Federal Reserve put an end to quantitative easing, its own massive bond-buying program.
Friday’s spike comes a day after the Dow Jones index rallied again on the back of a positive report on third-quarter U.S. gross domestic product along with a positive quarterly earnings report from Visa that sent the credit card company’s shares soaring more than 10%. Visa’s shares are up slightly on Friday.
The strong stretch finished out an October that started out with a wave of market volatility that included several massive sell-offs that most of the year’s gains. The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index (VIX), often referred to as the “fear index,” was down about 3% on Friday, to just over 14 points, or nearly half where it stood about two weeks ago.
