US indices post largest weekly gains in months

By Ovunc Kutlu

ANKARA (AA) - Major indices in the US stock market finished higher on Friday and posted biggest weekly gains in months, as they were fueled by strong earnings from American banking majors.

At final bell, the Dow Jones was up 392 points, or 1.09%, to 35,294. The blue-chip index posted a weekly gain of 1.57%, recording its largest weekly increase since June.

The S&P 500 rose 33 points, or 0.75%, to 4,471. It increased 1.82% for the week -- its best performance since July.

The Nasdaq added almost 74 points, or 0.5%, to 14,897. The tech-heavy index jumped 2.17% this week.

US investment banking firms JPMorgan, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley all reported during the week that their earnings increased in the Third quarter of this year.

The rally in stock exchanges continued Friday after US retail sales rose sharply in September by 0.7% from the previous month, despite analysts' estimate of a 0.2% decline.

Positive sentiment in the markets pushed the VIX volatility index down, as the fear index was down 3.3% to 16.30 shortly after final bell.

The dollar index was flat at 93.964 while the yield on 10-year US Treasury notes rose 3.6% to 1.574%.

Oil prices were on the rise again with international benchmark Brent crude trading at $84.73 with a 0.9% gain, and US benchmark West Texas Intermediate was at $82.28 -- a 1.2% increase.

Precious metals, on the other hand, ended their recent rally by reversing course. Gold was down 1.6% to $1,767 per ounce and silver declined 0.84% to $23.32.

Price of Bitcoin hit $60,000 on Friday for the first time in six months, since April 18.

Bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency by market cap, climbed to $60,361 at 9.55 a.m. EDT (1355 GMT), and it later saw as high as $62,900 -- just $1,500 shy of its all-time high.