Wall Street ended higher on Friday as investors assessed U.S. President Donald Trump's latest remarks on China, while quarterly results from regional banks eased concerns about credit risks.
Trump said his proposed 100% tariff on goods from China would not be sustainable, but blamed Beijing for the latest impasse in trade talks that began with Chinese authorities tightening control over rare earth exports. Trump unveiled the new tariffs a week ago, along with new export controls on "any and all critical software," to go into effect on November 1.
"The market doesn't really know what to take when Donald Trump speaks," said Robert Pavlik, senior portfolio manager at Dakota Wealth. "There's just a lot of back-and-forth comments with regards to China and trade tariffs and pretty much everything else."
Regional bank stocks rebounded following a selloff on Thursday, when Zions Bancorporation disclosed losses tied to two commercial and industrial loans and Western Alliance revealed it had initiated a lawsuit alleging fraud by Cantor Group V, LLC.
"There's a lot more bark than bite on the credit fears," said Jed Ellerbroek, a portfolio manager at Argent Capital. "Looking through all the big banks' results, credit is very good. Overall, there are very few pockets of weakness."
Truist Financial gained 3.7% after the bank reported higher third-quarter profit. Fifth Third Bancorp rose 1.3%, Zions shares rebounded from losses the day before to close 5.8% higher, and Western Alliance advanced 3.1%.
The S&P Composite 1500 Regional Banks index climbed 1.8% after tumbling almost 6% the day before.
The S&P 500 financial sector index, which includes the largest U.S. banks, rose 0.8%.
Robust earnings from JPMorgan (JPM.N), opens new tab and other big banks this week helped get the third-quarter earnings season off to an upbeat start. Analysts on average see S&P 500 earnings climbing 9.3% in the third quarter, an improvement from expectations of 8.8% at the start of October, according to LSEG I/B/E/S.
Following a rally of nearly 14% in 2025, the S&P 500 is valued at 23 times expected earnings, its priciest level in five years.
The S&P 500 climbed 0.53% to end the session at 6,664.01 points.
The Nasdaq gained 0.52% to 22,679.98 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.52% to 46,190.61 points.
Nine of the 11 S&P 500 sector indexes rose, led by consumer staples, up 1.23%.
For the week, the S&P 500 gained 1.7%, the Nasdaq rose 2.1% and the Dow climbed 1.6%.
The CBOE volatility index, investors' fear gauge, dropped to 21.5 points after hitting its highest level in nearly six months at 28.99 earlier in the day.
Wall Street's most valuable companies were mixed, with Tesla rising 2.5%, Apple adding almost 2% and Amazon falling 0.7%.
Eli Lilly fell 2% after Trump said he would bring down prices of weight-loss drugs.
State Street dropped 1.4% after the bank's third-quarter net interest income missed estimates.
Advancing issues outnumbered falling ones within the S&P 500 by a 2.6-to-one ratio.
The S&P 500 posted 7 new highs and 6 new lows; the Nasdaq recorded 37 new highs and 114 new lows.
Volume on U.S. exchanges was relatively light, with 19.6 billion shares traded, compared with an average of 20.7 billion shares over the previous 20 sessions.
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