Financial Markets                      09/13 15:25

   

   NEW YORK (AP) -- U.S. stocks closed out their best week of the year with 
more gains on Friday and climbed to the cusp of their records.

   The S&P 500 rose 0.5% for a fifth straight gain and is just 0.7% below its 
all-time high set in July. Rallies for Microsoft, Broadcom and other big 
technology stocks helped it claw back almost all its losses from last week, 
which was its worst in nearly 18 months.

   The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 297 points, or 0.7%, and at one 
point got within 30 points of its record set last month. The Nasdaq composite 
added 0.7%.

   Uber Technologies helped drive the market higher with a gain of 6.4% after 
saying it will bring autonomous ride-hailing to Austin and Atlanta with Waymo 
early next year.

   Stocks also got support from the bond market, where Treasury yields eased 
ahead of next week's meeting of the Federal Reserve. The unanimous expectation 
on Wall Street is for the Fed to deliver the first cut to interest rates in 
more than four years on Wednesday, and traders are rekindling hopes it may 
offer bigger-than-usual relief.

   The Federal Reserve has been keeping its main interest rate at a two-decade 
high in hopes of slowing the economy enough to stifle high inflation. With 
inflation having eased substantially from its peak two summers ago, the Fed has 
said it can turn more focus to bolstering the slowing job market and economy.

   How much to cut rates by will be a delicate balancing act for the Fed: 
Lowering them relieves pressure on the economy but can also give inflation more 
fuel. Reports earlier this week showed some underlying upward pressure may 
remain on inflation, which initially pushed traders to ratchet back 
expectations for the size of the Fed's upcoming move.

   On Friday, though, traders were seeing roughly a coin flip's chance that the 
Fed could deliver a large cut of half of a percentage point, instead of the 
more traditional quarter of a point, according to data from CME Group. The 
federal funds rate is currently sitting in a range of 5.25% to 5.50%.

   "Right now, the equity market is keying off the toss-up" in the size of the 
Fed's cut next week "and would probably be fine with either," said Sameer 
Samana, senior global market strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute.

   "They care more about direction than magnitude, and rates falling should 
take pressure" off companies' expenses and stock prices, he said.

   The yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 3.65% from 3.68% late Thursday. 
The two-year yield, which more closely tracks expectations for Fed action, fell 
more sharply to 3.58% from 3.65%.

   On Wall Street, home-furnishings company RH jumped 25.5% after reporting 
stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than expected. The company 
said demand has been gaining momentum each month "despite operating in the most 
challenging housing market in three decades."

   The housing market has been contending with high mortgage rates, though 
they've been easing since the spring on expectations for coming rate cuts. 
Shoppers have also generally been beaten down as prices continue to rise across 
the economy, though a preliminary reading on U.S. consumer sentiment on Friday 
came in better than economists expected.

   Oracle pared a big early gain to inch up 0.4% after giving long-term 
financial forecasts that analysts said topped their expectations. That brought 
the software company's gain to 14.3% for the week, which it began with a 
better-than-expected profit report for the latest quarter.

   Technology stocks were generally the market's main drivers this week, 
particularly Nvidia and other big technology stocks that struggled earlier this 
summer on concerns their prices had shot too high in the frenzy around 
artificial intelligence. Nvidia rallied 15.8% over the week despite slipping 
0.1% on Friday.

   On the losing end of Wall Street Friday was Boeing, which lost 3.7% as 
aircraft assembly workers walked off the job. Union members voted 
overwhelmingly to go on strike and reject the troubled aerospace giant's 
tentative contract that would have increased wages by 25% over four years.

   Adobe fell 8.5%, even though the company also reported better profit for the 
latest quarter than expected. Analysts said investors were more focused on its 
financial forecasts for the current quarter, where some trends looked to be 
falling short of expectations.

   All told, the S&P 500 rose 30.26 points to 5,626.02. The Dow gained 297.01 
to 41,393.78, and the Nasdaq composite added 114.30 to 17,683.98.

   In stock markets abroad, indexes rose in Europe after finishing mixed in 
Asia.

   ___

   AP Writers Matt Ott and Zimo Zhong contributed.

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