NEW YORK, March 21 (Xinhua) -- U.S. stocks ended higher on Friday in the final minutes of the trading session after a week of big swings.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 32.03 points, or 0.08 percent, to 41,985.35, while the S&P 500 added 4.67 points, or 0.08 percent, to 5,667.56, snapping its weekly losing streak. The Nasdaq Composite led the gains, rising 92.43 points, or 0.52 percent, to 17,784.05.
Despite the overall market uptick, eight of the 11 primary S&P 500 sectors ended in negative territory, with real estate and materials leading the declines, down 1.02 percent and 1.00 percent, respectively. On the other hand, communication services and consumer discretionary stocks outperformed, rising 1.00 percent and 0.63 percent, respectively.
Markets braced for heightened volatility due to "quadruple witching," when stock options, index futures, index options, and single-stock futures expire, with Goldman Sachs estimating that over 4.7 trillion U.S. dollars in notional options exposure would be affected.
The session remained turbulent, though major indexes recovered from earlier losses after U.S. President Donald Trump suggested some flexibility on tariffs, while still affirming that any country imposing tariffs on U.S. goods would face reciprocal measures by the April 2 deadline.
With Trump's tariff deadline approaching, market pressure may persist, according to analysts including Michael Green of Simplify Asset Management. "Companies are increasingly citing confusion and uncertainty around their planning and capital spending and hiring decisions -- and when they pause, it means that they're slowing down," he said. "There's an element of that playing out in the markets."
Verdence Capital Advisors' chief investment officer Megan Horneman agreed. "There's just so much from the economic standpoint that is unknown at this point that I think even after April 2 if we have some clarity there, we still don't know what that secondary impact is going to be to the economy," Horneman said.
"We also don't know from the inflation standpoint if this is just going to be a one-time hit to inflation or if we're going to keep seeing this back and forth, which could have a bigger impact on inflation," added Horneman.
Leading Friday's declines, FedEx dropped 6.45 percent after lowering its earnings outlook due to weakness in the U.S. industrial economy, while Nike fell 5.46 percent as the company warned that tariffs and weakening consumer confidence would weigh on quarterly sales.
Big tech stocks mostly advanced on Friday, with Tesla leading the Magnificent Seven with a 5.27 percent gain, followed by Apple and Meta, which rose 1.95 percent and 1.75 percent, respectively. Microsoft climbed 1.14 percent, while Amazon and Alphabet posted modest gains of less than 1 percent. Nvidia was the only major tech stock to decline, slipping 0.7 percent.
The U.S. Treasury yields showed a mixed performance, with long-term yields rising while short-term yields edged lower. The 10-year Treasury yield, a key indicator influenced by inflation expectations and monetary policy outlook, inched up to 4.25 percent as of 4:25 p.m. EDT, but were down for the week.
