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Stock Market News For Mar 17, 2025

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Market News

Wall Street ended higher on Friday as gold surpassed $3,000 amid economic uncertainty, with the Nasdaq Composite, the Dow and the S&P 500 closing in positive territory. However, all three indexes posted weekly losses.

How Did the Benchmarks Perform?

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) rose 1.7%, or 674.62 points, to close at 41,488.19. Twenty-four components of the 30-stock index ended in positive territory, while six ended in negative. The major gainer of the Dow was NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA - Free Report) . The stock price of this computing infrastructure company rose 5.3%. NVIDIA currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lost 451.07 points, or 2.6%, to close at 17,754.09.

The S&P 500 advanced 117.42 points, or 2.1%, to close at 5,638.94. Each of the 11 broad sectors of the benchmark index closed in the green. The Technology Select Sector SPDR (XLK), the Energy Select Sector SPDR (XLE) and the Financial Select Sector SPDR (XLF) rose 3%, 3% and 2.3%, respectively.

The fear-gauge CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) decreased 11.7% to 21.77. A total of 14.64 billion shares were traded on Friday, lower than the last 20-session average of 16.56 billion. The S&P 500 posted one new 52-week high and five new lows. The Nasdaq Composite recorded 34 new highs and 161 new lows.

Gold Hits $3,000 Amid Economic Uncertainty

The gold market touched $3,000 per ounce for the first time on Friday after rising on a wave of safe-haven buying fueled by the tariff war-induced market turmoil. Gold futures traded on the spot rose to $2,986.26 after touching a high of $3,004.86. The focus of market participants has now shifted to the Federal Reserve’s meeting next week, with the CME's FedWatch tool showing that there is a 98% chance of the rates being kept unchanged.

Consumer Sentiment Falls in March

Per the University of Michigan, preliminary consumer sentiment for March decreased to 57.9 from 64.7 reported in February.

Weekly Roundup

In the last seven trading days, the Dow fell 3.1%, marking its worst week since March 2023. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq declined more than 2%, extending their losing streaks to four weeks.


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