Elsewhere, stocks fell Friday to close out a rare losing week for Wall Street following mixed reports on the US job market and two of the market’s most influential stocks.

The S&P 500 sank 0.5 per cent. It was the fourth-straight drop for Wall Street’s main measure of health after it set a 16-month high at the start of the week.

The Dow Jones also drifted between gains and losses through the day before ending with a loss. It dropped 0.4 per cent and the Nasdaq composite gave up 0.4 per cent.

The job market is in a precarious place, where investors want a reading that’s neither too hot nor too cold. On one hand, investors want it to remain strong enough to keep the economy out of a long-predicted recession. On the other, they don’t want wage growth in particular to be so strong that the Federal Reserve sees it putting upward pressure on inflation.

Critics, though, say it’s far from assured that inflation will easily drop back down to the Fed’s target and that the economy will avoid a painful recession. That’s why they say the 19.5 per cent surge for the S&P 500 through this year’s first seven months was too much, too fast. This week was just the third losing week for the S&P 500 in the last 12.

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Big Tech stocks in particular led Wall Street’s charge this year, with expectations for strong continued growth leading to tremendous gains in their stock prices. Two of them offered a mixed picture of their results after trading ended on Thursday.

Amazon jumped 8.3 per cent in its first trading after it reported a much bigger profit for the spring than expected. The company said growth for its important cloud-computing business stabilised during the quarter, and its revenue also topped analysts’ forecasts.

Apple, though, slumped 4.8 per cent despite reporting stronger profit than expected. Its revenue only just barely topped analysts’ estimates, and its forecast for revenue in the current quarter didn’t blow past expectations.

Because it’s the biggest stock on Wall Street by market value, Apple’s movements pack extra punch on the S&P 500 and other indexes. It was the single biggest weight on the S&P 500 Friday by far.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury dropped to 4.04 per cent from 4.18 per cent late Thursday. It helps set rates for mortgages and other important loans.

The two-year Treasury yield, which moves more on expectations for the Fed, fell to 4.77 per cent from 4.89 per cent.

With AP

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