Dow gains more than 250 points Friday as index finishes best month since January: Live updates

The major indexes finished Friday's session higher.

The Dow and S&P 500 finished up 0.8%, while the Nasdaq Composite closed 0.7% higher.

— Alex Harring

With earnings season now more than halfway through, major companies are topping Wall Street expectations at a healthy rate, according to FactSet.

John Butters, the firm's senior earnings analyst, said in a note to clients on Friday that 53% of S&P 500 companies have reported so far. Of those names, 79% have beat estimates on earnings per share and 74% have beat on revenue.

Earnings are now on track to be down 3.7% for the quarter, a smaller decline than the 6.7% decline projected on March 31.

— Jesse Pound

Intel is a buy now that the worst is priced into the chip stock, Benchmark said.

"[We] believe the company's results and outlook now reflect a worst case scenario considering the current macro-economic climate and accordingly we believe it is prudent to begin to take a more positive stance on Intel's shares," analyst Cody Acree said to clients in a Friday note.

— Sarah Min

With 50% of S&P 500 companies having now posted their quarterly results, certain stocks — in particular, consumer names — outperformed the market this week.

Those gains came as earnings ramped up, with several Big Tech names and industrial giants posting their latest figures.

Investors were also looking ahead to next week's Federal Reserve announcement. As of Friday afternoon, there was an 86% probability of the central bank raising rates by 25 basis points, according to the CME Group's FedWatch tool.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read about this week's top outperformers, and where analysts see them going, here.

— Hakyung Kim

Friday's personal consumption expenditures price index data could give the Federal Reserve a reason to once again raise interest rates at its meeting next week, said Ryan Belanger, founder and managing principal of Claro Advisors.

The data, which was in line with economist expectations when looking at month-over-month change in so-called "core" PCE, is a key gauge of inflation for the central bank. And it comes ahead of the Fed policy meeting scheduled for next week.

The Fed raised interest rates by 25 basis points, or a quarter of a percentage point, at its most recent meeting. Belanger said to expect that again to the chagrin of some market participants.

"Friday's inflation report gives the Federal Reserve an excuse to hike interest rates by 25 basis points at the May meeting, even though there is a growing chorus among investors for the Fed to pause its rate hikes given worries about the economy," he said.

— Alex Harring

The three major indexes remained on track to finish Friday's session higher as the final trading hour kicked off.

The Dow was up 0.5%, while the S&P 500 gained 0.6% and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.4%.

Friday marks the last day of the trading week and month.

The Dow is on pace to finish April 2.2% higher. That would be its best monthly showing since January, when the average ended up 2.8%.

The S&P 500 is poised for a 1.2% monthly gain, while the Nasdaq is on track to end the month down 0.3%.

On the week, the Nasdaq is slated for the largest gain at 1%. The Dow and S&P 500 are each poised to finish the week about 0.6% higher.

— Alex Harring

With just hours left in the trading month, the Dow is on track to post a better April than it has historically.

The blue-chip index is up 2.2% month to date. By comparison, the Dow has gained an average of 1.9% when looking at every April since 1950. April is typically the best month of the year for the 30-stock average.

Merck has led the Dow up this month with a gain of 7.7%. Microsoft, JPMorgan, McDonald's, Travelers and Johnson & Johnson have all followed as each added more than 5%. Cisco was the biggest laggard in the 30-stock index, dropping more than 10% on the month.

But the Dow has fallen short of past Aprils in pre-election years. When averaging every April in the years preceding an election since 1950, the Dow has finished the month up 3.9% on average.

— Alex Harring

China saw its largest weekly equity inflow this week since January 2022, according to a Friday note from Bank of America.

The firm said Chinese equity funds recorded $6.1 billion in inflows. The world's second-largest economy ended three-years of its Covid-era restrictions in late 2022.

The country's economy grew 4.5% in the first quarter of 2023, marking its highest growth since the first quarter of 2022.

— Hakyung Kim

The CBOE Volatility Index, or the VIX, reached a fresh multi-year low on Friday. The market "fear-gauge" dropped another 5.5% Friday afternoon, marking its lowest levels since November 2021, indicating subdued levels of market volatility. However, Goldman Sachs says low volatility won't last for the rest of the year. 

"A big reason is that a longer period of lower volatility usually comes with a perky economy. By contrast, Goldman Sachs Research expects U.S. GDP to expand 1.6% in 2023, which is below its historical trend, and growth is likely to slow from here," according to a Friday article from the bank.

Goldman Sachs expects credit tightening from the fallout in the U.S. banking sector will likely put downward pressure on growth for the rest of the year. "Below trend and slowing growth is not consistent with equity volatility being significantly compressed," according to Christian Mueller-Glissmann, the firm's head of asset allocation research. 

Mueller-Glissmann added that investors are becoming more concerned about the political "wrangling" over potentially raising the U.S. federal governments' debt ceiling, leading to a rise in demand for hedging around potential debt ceiling rates.

The bank says  that under the surface, investors are making some adjustments to their positioning, noting that the VIX curve is upward sloping, indicating that investors expect volatility to increase in the future. 

"The market is starting to be more worried about downside risk than upside risk," said Mueller-Glissmann. "We certainly have seen people shift a bit more defensive in their portfolios. Convictions levels are low, but people are feeling bearish."

— Hakyung Kim

Energy and consumer staples stocks have aided the S&P 500's advance this month.

With just Friday's session left in the April trading month, consumer staples and energy sectors are both slated to post monthly gains of 3.4%. Those jumps make them the top performing of the broad index's 11 sectors this month.

Consumer staples has been led by up Molson Coors and Mondelez, which have gained more than 15% and 10%, respectively, since the month began. Hess and EQT have led the ascent for energy, with each advancing more than 9% on the month.

By comparison, the S&P 500 is poised to finish April 1.3% higher. Consumer discretionary and industrial stocks have weighed on the index as both sectors are on track to end the month more than 1% in the red.

— Alex Harring

These are some of the company's making the most significant moves during midday trading Friday:

First Republic — Shares of the regional bank fell by 50% after sources told CNBC's David Faber that the most likely outcome for First Republic is to be taken into receivership by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporate. However, there is still hope for a rescue deal to occur before the regulator would step in, the sources said.

Snap — The Snapchat parent company cratered about 18% after missing revenue expectations for the recent quarter. Snap's revenue fell 6% from a year ago.

Intel — Intel shares rose more than 4% even after the company reported its largest quarterly loss on record and a 133% reduction year over year. Even so, Intel reported a smaller-than-expected loss per share and better-than-expected revenue. Benchmark upgraded the chipmaker, saying the worst is priced into shares.

Read the full list of stocks moving here.

— Samantha Subin

Wall Street analysts were mixed on Pinterest after its latest earnings results, saying the near-term outlook appears murky, though an Amazon partnership seems promising. 

JPMorgan's Doug Anmuth reiterated a neutral rating on Pinterest, but considered the firm's deal with Amazon for third-party ads a bright spot in the report.

"While there won't be any impact to financials until 2024, we were encouraged by the deal and believe it will serve as a meaningful unlock for demand & monetization," Anmuth wrote.  

— Sarah Min

First Solar dragged down solar stocks on Friday after reporting an earnings miss before the bell.

Shares of First Solar slid more than 14% in its worst day since Feb. 21, 2020. The company reported first-quarter adjusted earnings per share of 40 cents per share, versus the 99 cents expected by analysts, per StreetAccount.

That weighed on the Invesco Solar ETF, which slid 3.2% and was down 8.6% week to date, on pace for the worst week back to September 2022, when the fund lost 10.9%.

The ETF is down 8.4% month to date, on track for the worst month of the year back to December, when it lost 13.2%.

— Gina Francolla, Michelle Fox

Berkshire Hathaway Class A shares inched up on Friday and could close above $500,000 apiece. Warren Buffett's conglomerate hit an intraday high of $500,140, and if the gain holds, it would close above the half million threshold for the first time since April 25, 2022.

The Omaha-based company is up more than 6% this year. The highly anticipated annual shareholder meeting will be held May 6.

— Yun Li

First Republic is most likely headed for receivership, sources told CNBC's David Faber.

The FDIC is talking to other financial firms about potential offers for First Republic in the event that the regulator seizes the regional bank, the sources said. However, there is still hope for a rescue deal that does not involve receivership.

The stock, which was mostly flat in early trading, is now down more than 20%. It has lost more than 95% since 2023 began.

— Jesse Pound

Restaurant and food-focused stocks dominated the list of companies breaking into new highs during Friday trading.

That included shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill and McDonald's, last trading at levels not seen since their respective initial public offerings in January 2006 and 1965.

These are some of the other companies hitting new record highs:

• O'Reilly Auto trading at all-time high levels back to its IPO in April1993
• PulteGroup trading at all-time highs back to its IPO in 1972
• Starbucks trading at levels not seen since January 2022
• YUM Brands trading at all-time highs back to its IPO in September 1997
• Clorox trading at levels not seen since February 2022
• General Mills trading at all-time highs back to when it began trading on the NYSE in 1928
• Mondelez trading at all-time high levels back to the original Kraft IPO in June 2001
• Monster Beverage trading at all-time high levels back to its listing on the NASDAQ in 1992
• Pepsico trading at all-time highs back to Pepsi-Cola's merger with Frito-Lay in 1965 to form Pepsico
• Exxon trading at all-time highs back to when it was listed on the NYSE in 1920
• Arch Capital Group trading at all-time high levels back to when it began trading on the NASDAQ in 2000
• Cardinal Health trading at levels not seen since April 2017
• Vertex Pharmaceuticals trading at all-time highs back to its IPO in July 1991
• Quanta Services trading at all-time highs back to its IPO in February 1998
• Fair Isaac trading at all-time highs back to when it was listed at the NYSE in 1986
• Microsoft trading at levels not seen since April 2022
• Boyd Gaming trading at levels not seen since March 2022
• Churchill Downs trading at all-time highs back to when it was listed on the NASDAQ in March 1993
• Skechers U.S.A trading at levels not seen since August 2021
• Encompass Health trading at levels not seen since August 2021
• Graco trading at levels not seen since January 2022
• Lennox International trading at levels not seen since February 2022
• Owens Corning trading at levels not seen since June 2021
• NewMarket trading at levels not seen since April 2021
• Madison Square Garden Sports trading at levels not seen since March 2021
• UWM Holdings trading at levels not seen since January 2022

These companies hit fresh lows:

• Zoom Video Communications trading at lows not seen since April 2019
• Zscaler trading at lows not seen since May 2020
• Enviva trading at lows not seen since March 2020
• Informatica trading at all-time lows back to its IPO in October 2021
• Thoughtworks trading at all-time lows back to its IPO in September 2021

— Samantha Subin

The final reading on the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index came in at 63.5, matching a FactSet estimate.

"Consumer sentiment was little changed this month, inching up less than two index points from March," wrote Surveys of Consumers director Joanne Hsu. "Buying conditions for durables improved 11% primarily on the basis of easing perceptions of unaffordability. Despite the increasingly negative news on business conditions heard by consumers, their short and long-run economic outlook improved modestly from last month."

— Fred Imbert

The PHLX Semiconductor Sector Index is underperforming the S&P 500 by 9.7 percentage points in April, and by its widest margin dating back to May 2019, according to data from Bespoke Investment Group.

In fact, data shows that semiconductors have only underperformed the benchmark index by greater that 7.5 percentage points during eight months over the last two decades. Before 2019, the widest underperformance dates back to November 2008.

— Samantha Subin

The three major indexes opened Friday's session down.

The Dow slipped 0.3%, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite each shed 0.2%.

— Alex Harring

What Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell says coming out of next week's policy meeting will play a critical role in influencing whether the market gets out this tight trading range.

"I think the tone on that balance is going to be very critical to how the market is going to move next week," he told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Friday.

Commentary suggesting more work is ahead would likely discourage the market, while remarks pointing to a pause could help it break out of its recent tight trading range, Siegel said.

The economist also called concerns that a pause in the Federal Reserve's hiking cycle next week would fuel inflationary expectations "stale."

"When you take a look at the trends, I think that Powell worrying about that is, frankly, very outdated," he said.

— Samantha Subin

Shares of First Republic are moving higher in premarket trading as the beaten-down bank stock is poised to rise for a second-straight day.

The stock was up about 6% in premarket trading after rising more than 8% on Thursday.

The latest move comes after Reuters reported that U.S. officials are coordinating meetings with other banks to broker a rescue plan for First Republic.

— Jesse Pound

Here's some of the stocks making the biggest moves in early trading:

Snap — Shares tumbled 18.2% after the company's first-quarter revenue fell short of Wall Street's expectations. Snap's revenue fell 6% from the prior year to $989 million, whereas analysts had expected $1.01 billion, according to Refinitiv data.

Exxon Mobil — Shares added 1% in the premarket after the oil giant reported a record first-quarter profit. Exxon Mobil's adjusted earnings per share came in at $2.83, topping analysts' estimates of $2.59, per Refinitiv. Its revenue of $86.56 billion also beat the $85.41 billion expected.

First Solar — The solar panel manufacturer declined more than 8% in early trading after an earnings miss. The company reported 40 cents per share adjusted on $548.29 million in revenue, while a StreetAccount estimate called for 99 cents per share.

Read the full list here.

— Brian Evans

The core personal consumption expenditures price index, a key measure of inflation for the Federal Reserve, rose as much as economists expected last month.

The core index rose 0.3% in March, which is what economists polled by Dow Jones anticipated.

— Jeff Cox

Thursday's drop in Mobileye Global shares is signaling to the market that near-term revenue and earnings concerns have "largely played out," according to Wolfe Research.

Given this outlook, analyst Shreyas Patil upgraded the company to an outperform from peer perform rating in a Friday note to clients. He also lifted the firm's price target to $46 a share, reflecting about 27% upside from Thursday's close.

"We got the sell-off that we expected," he wrote. "But the long-term story appears even more compelling."

Shares of the Intel self-driving subsidiary fell more than 16% on Thursday after it slashed its full-year outlook due to weakness in the Chinese electric vehicle market and concerns that shipments of its advanced SuperVision system would suffer. The company offers chips, sensors and software for advanced driver-assist systems.

"We were concerned that the market was starting to price in aggressive out-year market share / penetration of their more advanced automation solutions ...," Patil wrote.

Even so, the long-term outlook for advanced vehicle automation looks strong and intact, Patil said.

He expects recent developments in the advanced vehicle automation space, including Tesla's plans to gain a competitive advantage through its full self-driving offering, as potential benefits to Mobileye. These changes should also "serve to renew urgency" among many traditional original equipment manufacturers, Patil added.

Mobileye shares have fallen nearly 19% this week. The stock's gained about 3.1% in 2023.

— Samantha Subin

Oil majors Exxon Mobil and Chevron both beat Wall Street's expectations for first-quarter earnings, despite the pullback in oil prices

Exxon Mobil reported a record first-quarter profit thanks largely to strong production growth. The company's adjusted earnings per share of $2.83 topped the expected $2.59 from analysts polled by Refinitiv. Revenue came in at $86.56 billion, beating the $85.41 billion expected. Shares gained about 1% in the premarket.

Meanwhile, Chevron's adjusted EPS was $3.55 versus the expected $3.41, per Refinitiv. Revenue also beat, coming in at $50.79 compared to the $47.89 anticipated. However, net profit in Chevron's oil and gas division dropped 25% on the drop in oil prices. Shares of Chevron slipped less than 1% in premarket trading.

— Michelle Fox

Wall Street analysts remained bullish on Amazon after the company's latest earnings, even as management raised concern about the company's cloud business going forward.

"We are encouraged with retail progress and likely share gains and note Amazon's investment cycle history suggests room for more margin upside," Bank of America analyst Justin Post wrote. "As for AWS, results were better than feared, but not as good as Azure, and we think it's possible Azure gets a near-term AI boost (but this won't last beyond 2023, in our view) while AWS's higher exposure to fintech and other start-ups may have impacted April." 

The analyst hiked his price target to $139 per share from $135.

— Sarah Min

Adam Crisafulli of Vital Knowledge said that, while first-quarter earnings have overall been strong, Thursday's reports underwhelmed.

"Amazon had huge Q1 [operating] income upside and mgmt. talked about getting margins in the North America retail business back to pre-pandemic levels, but the deceleration at AWS in April is spooking investors," he wrote. "In addition to Amazon, other US reports not being received well by investors this morning," including Pinterest and Snap, he added.

— Fred Imbert, Michael Bloom

Japanese conglomerate Sony posted a record annual operating profit of 1.21 trillion yen ($8.96 billion) for its financial year ended March. The results were driven by its chip division and sales of its flagship PlayStation 5 gaming console, which hit a record for the financial year.

Net profit for the year stood at 943.62 billion, 6.21% higher compared with the previous financial year, while revenue came in at 11.54 trillion versus the previous year's 9.92 trillion.

Sony previously forecast operating profit of 1.18 trillion yen and 11.5 trillion yen in revenue for its full financial year.

For the three months ended March, revenue was at 3.06 trillion yen, a 35% year-on-year rise, while operating profit fell 7% to 128.46 billion yen.

Read the full story here.

— Lim Hui Jie, Arjun Kharpal

The Bank of Japan left its interest rates unchanged in newly appointed Governor Kazuo Ueda's first policy meeting.

The decision was in line with economist expectations for no changes to the benchmark interest rate, which has been held at minus 0.1% since the central bank took rates below zero in 2016.

The Japanese yen weakened further to 134.6 against the U.S. dollar and the yield on the 10-year Japanese government bonds was at 0.460%.

Ueda has earlier this week emphasized inflation needs to be "quite strong and close to 2%" — the central bank's target — before making any adjustments to the yield curve control policy.

— Jihye Lee

Prices of private homes in Singapore increased by 3.3% in the first quarter of 2023, a faster pace than the 0.4% increase recorded in the previous quarter.

Singapore's Urban Redevelopment Authority revealed that prices of landed properties increased by 5.9%, while prices for non landed properties climbed 2.6% in the first quarter of 2023.

This is compared with a 0.6% increase for landed properties, as well as a 0.3% increase recorded for non-landed properties in the previous quarter.

Separately, rentals climbed by 7.2%, slightly lower compared to the 7.4% increase in the previous quarter.

This comes on the back of surprise cooling measures enacted by Singapore late on Wednesday, which saw the country raise taxes for property purchases, amid concerns that surging prices "could run ahead of economic fundamentals."

— Lim Hui Jie

The consumer price index in Japan's capital city ticked higher and rose 3.5% in April, government data showed on Friday.

The reading exceeded forecasts in a Reuters poll expecting to see a 3.2% increase for the month, after posting a slightly cooler inflation reading of 3.2% in March.

Excluding fresh food, Tokyo's consumer price index rose 3.5% — also above the central bank's inflation target of 2%.

The Japanese yen stood at 133.83 against the U.S. dollar shortly after the release. The yield on the 10-year Japanese Government Bonds stood at 0.476%, nearing the upper ceiling of the central bank's tolerance range of 50 basis points above and below 0%.

— Jihye Lee

The Dow Jones Industrial Average notched its best day since January on Thursday, and it's headed for a positive week and month as well. As of Thursday's close, here are where the three major indexes stand:

The Dow:

• Week: The Dow is up 0.05% this week, on pace for its 5th positive week in 6.
• Month: The Dow is up 1.66% this month, on pace for its second positive month in a row.

The S&P 500:

• Week: The S&P is up 0.04% this week, on pace for its second positive week in 3.
• Month: The S&P is up 0.63% this month, on pace for its second positive month in a row.   

The Nasdaq Composite:

• Week: The NASDAQ is up 0.58% this week, on pace for its second positive week in 3.
• Month: The NASDAQ is down 0.65% this month, on pace for its second negative month in 3.  

— Chris Hayes, Sarah Min

Amazon reported better-than-expected revenue on Thursday, but the stock's initial pop was wiped out after executives raised concerns of ongoing weakness in cloud growth.

The tech stock last declined nearly 2% in extended trading.

— Annie Palmer

Check out the companies making headlines after hours.

• Intel – Intel shares rose 4.3% after the firm beat analysts' expectations on the top and bottom lines. The semiconductor firm posted a first-quarter loss of 4 cents per share ex-items on revenue of $11.7 billion. Analysts polled by Refinitiv forecasted a loss per share of 15 cents on revenue of $11.04 billion. However, Intel reported its largest-ever quarterly loss.
• Snap – The social media stock tumbled 18% in extended trading Thursday after the firm's first-quarter results. Snap reported first-quarter revenue of $989 million, lower than the estimated $1.01 billion, according to Refinitiv data. On the other hand, Snap earned 1 cent per share, excluding items, which was better than the forecasted per-share loss of 1 cent. 
• Pinterest – Pinterest shares dropped 13%. The image sharing firm surpassed expectations on the top and bottom lines in its first quarter, according to consensus estimates from Refinitiv. However, second-quarter revenue growth expectations were disappointing. The firm expects operating expenses to grow in the low teens. 

Read the full list here.

— Sarah Min

The Barclays iPath sugar exchange traded note (SGG) jumped almost 3% Thursday, bringing its year-to-date advance to more than 47%. The tiny ETN, with a market value of just $45 million, is set to stop trading on June 7, 2023, according to FactSet.

The Teucrium Sugar Fund climbed 2.7% Thursday and is higher by more than 45% in 2023. There don't appear any plans to close that one.

July sugar contracts reached 26.83 cents per pound on Thursday, the highest since September 2011. Month-to-date, sugar is ahead almost 19% — on pace for the strongest month since Sept. 2015 — and year-to-date sugar is higher by almost 32%.

— Scott Schnipper, Gina Francolla

U.S. stock futures fell slightly on Thursday night as investors digested the latest round of corporate earnings, including results from Amazon. 

Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell by 30 points, or 0.09%. S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures slipped 0.04% and 0.1%, respectively. 

— Sarah Min