U.S. stocks rose yesterday to start the third quarter, after the Standard & Poor's 500 concluded its worst first-half performance since 1970. Despite Friday's gain, the three major indexes posted their fourth losing week in five. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 321.83, or 1.1 percent, to 31,097.26. Twenty-four of the index's 30 components advanced, led by McDonald's, which gained 2.5 percent. Coca-Cola and Boeing each climbed about 2.3 percent. Intel led decliners, dropping 2.9 percent, in a rough day for chipmakers. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 39.95, or 1.1 percent, to 3,825.33. Homebuilding stocks led the market higher in afternoon trading. General Motors advanced 1.4 percent despite warning about second-quarter manufacturing issues. Kohl's plunged nearly 20 percent after the retailer cut its quarterly outlook, citing softer consumer spending, and terminated talks to sell its business. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index rose 99.11, or 0.9 percent, to 11,127.85. Micron Technology fell 3 percent after issuing disappointing fiscal quarterly guidance. Several other chipmakers fell along with it. Nvidia lost 4.2 percent, and Qualcomm, Western Digital, and Advanced Micro Devices each dropped about 3 percent. Amazon gained 3.2 percent, Netflix climbed 2.9 percent, Apple advanced 1.6 percent, and Tesla added 1.2 percent. Facebook-parent Meta fell 0.8 percent, and Google-parent Alphabet declined 0.3 percent. In U.S. economic news, manufacturing growth slowed more than expected in June, with a measure of new orders contracting for the first time in two years. The U.S. dollar rose versus a basket of currencies. Gold fell slightly, posting a third consecutive weekly drop, on the strong dollar and expected interest-rate increases. Futures declined 0.1 percent to $1,804.90 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil prices rose sharply on supply outages in Libya and expected shutdowns in Norway, but gains were limited by expectations that an economic slowdown could hurt demand. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures gained $2.81, or 2.7 percent, to $108.57 a barrel.
