WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Stocks have moved sharply higher over the course of
the trading day on Friday, largely offsetting the significant pullback seen in
the previous session. With the strong move, the Dow has reached a new record
intraday high.

Currently, the major averages are just off their highs of the session. The Dow
is up 399.72 points or 1.0 percent at 40,153.47, the Nasdaq is up 210.95 points
or 1.2 percent at 18,494.35 and the S&P 500 is up 56.58 points or 1.0 percent at
5,641.12.

The strength on Wall Street comes as traders look to pick up stocks at somewhat
reduced levels following the steep drop seen on Thursday, which partly reflected
a rotation out of leading tech stocks like Nvidia (NVDA).

Shares of Nvidia are currently jumping by 2.6 percent after the AI darling
plunged by 5.6 percent in the previous session.

Traders also remain optimistic about the outlook for interest rates even though
the Labor Department released a report showing producer prices in the U.S.
increased by slightly more than expected in the month of June.

The Labor Department said its producer price index for final demand rose by 0.2
percent in June following a revised unchanged reading in May.

Economists had expected producer prices to inch up by 0.1 percent compared to
the 0.2 percent dip originally reported for the previous month.

The report also said the annual rate of producer price growth accelerated to 2.6
percent in June from an upwardly revised 2.4 percent in May.

The annual rate of producer price growth was expected to creep up to 2.3 percent
from the 2.2 percent originally reported for the previous month.

Despite the advance by the broader markets, shares of Wells Fargo (WFC) have
moved sharply lower after the company reported weaker than expected net interest
income for the second quarter.

Financial giants JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Citigroup (C) have also moved to the
downside after reporting their second quarter results.

Sector News

Semiconductor stocks have shown a strong move back to the upside following a
sell-off in the previous session, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index
surging by 2.5 percent after plunging by 3.5 percent on Thursday.

Considerable strength also remains visible among housing stocks, as reflected by
the 2.1 percent jump by the Philadelphia Housing Sector Index.

Networking stocks also continue to see significant strength on the day, driving
the NYSE Arca Networking Index up by 2.0 percent.

Steel, utilities and computer hardware stocks have also shown notable moves to
the upside, moving higher along with most of the other major sectors.

Other Markets

In overseas trading, stock markets across the Asia-Pacific region turned in a
mixed performance during trading on Friday. Japan's Nikkei 225 Index plummeted
by 2.5 percent, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index surged by 2.6 percent.

Meanwhile, the major European markets all moved to the upside on the day. While
the French CAC 40 Index shot up by 1.3 percent, the German DAX Index jumped by
1.1 and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index rose by 0.4 percent.

In the bond market, treasuries have shown a lack of direction after moving
sharply higher in the previous session. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark
ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, is up by less than a basis
point at 4.198 percent.



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