Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index hit a 13-month high on Friday as Tesla’s partnership with General Motors sent shares in the electric car maker soaring.
The S&P added 0.6 percent at the opening bell, passed the closing high of 4,305.2 on August 16 last year and reached its highest level since late April last year. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained 0.9 percent, while shares in Tesla added 6.5 percent.
Tesla boosted investor sentiment when the automaker struck a deal to let General Motors’ customers use its electric vehicle charging system, having struck a similar agreement with Ford last month.
European equities recovered some of their early losses, but the regional Stoxx 600 and the German Dax both remained down 0.1 percent.
The London FTSE 100 fell 0.5 percent and dragged lower after a profit warning from Croda. Shares in the chemical company fell 12 percent and reached a low last seen in early 2020 after it warned customers that it was de-stocking. The Stoxx 600 Chemicals index lost 2 percent.
European gas futures rose a fifth to €32.30 ahead of an expected heat wave in parts of Europe over the weekend.
Meanwhile, investors prepared for Federal Reserve policymakers to set interest rates next week, betting that they will refrain from rate hikes this month.
Traders thought a rate hike was less likely after US unemployment data on Thursday pointed to a cooling labor market.
“Markets jostled with weekly US job data showing unemployment rising, giving the Fed more reason to consider a pause in rate hikes when it meets next week,” said Matt Britzman, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown. “And the great benefactors? Big Tech of course.”
Indicative of the calm spreading across the markets, the Vix volatility index fell to its lowest level since the outbreak of panic over the coronavirus pandemic three years ago. The benchmark is a measure of the expected swings in the S&P over the next month.
Nevertheless, the yield on the two-year US Treasury bill, which is sensitive to interest rate expectations, rose by 0.08 percentage point to 4.59 percent. The yield on the 10-year note rose by 0.05 percentage point to 3.77 percent. Bond yields rise as prices fall.
Investors prepared for the meeting of European Central Bank policymakers next week, betting they will raise the bank’s deposit rate by 0.25 percentage point, above its current level of 3.25 percent.
“Despite some recent breaks in inflation data, (ECB President Christine Lagarde) will signal that their work on inflation is far from complete,” said Mohit Kumar, Jefferies chief European economist.
In Turkey, the lira extended its decline to an all-time low, falling 1.4 percent against the dollar to 23.54 after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan appointed former US banker Hafize Gaye Erkan to lead the central bank of the to lead the country.
Asian equities rose, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index rising 0.5 percent, while China’s CSI 300 rose 0.4 percent.
