The S&P 500 was largely flat in afternoon trading on Friday towards the end of another volatile week as investors weighed Oracle’s strong results against data that suggested a long and wobbly economic revival from a downturn.
Oracle’s shares edged higher after hitting a record high earlier in the session as the cloud services company’s earnings beat estimates and it signaled a recovery in client spending due to higher remote working-led demand.
Trading in so-called “stay-at-home winners” — Apple Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Microsoft Corp and Netflix Inc — were mixed but the mega-caps were set to fall between 5% and 8% for the week, extending losses from last Friday that brought Wall Street’s rally to a screeching halt.
The S&P 500 was headed for the first back-to-back weekly decline since March as concerns about the massive build-up in call options tied to tech names exacerbated the selloff.
“We are seeing some rotation from the previous leaders into some of the laggards and it’s a potentially encouraging sign that we’re not just having a ‘sell everything’ moment like in March,” said Ryan Detrick, senior market strategist at LPL Financial in Charlotte, North Carolina.
