The market stabilized by the news that Russia was ending military drills near Ukranian borders while the investors overlooked US air strikes in Iraq. The S&P and Dow both reported their best day since March, on Friday. The CBOE market volatility index fell 5.7 percent to 15.71 percent indicating signs of reduced investor uncertainty. The buying intensified as the end of the day neared, with the gains helping to fix losses earlier in the week.
Before Friday, the S&P 500 had given up more than 4 percent while the small cap Russel was down 7 percent over the past four weeks. For some time, stocks have been under pressure, as investors worried about uncertainty around the world pulled back from riskier assets.
According to Malcolm Polley, president and chief investment officer of Stewart Capital Advisors in Indiana, Pennsylvania, “ The market hates uncertainty and when it doesn’t have enough information about how badly an event could impact the economy, it tends to take the worst-case scenario and people sell off.”
Earlier on Friday, air strikes were carried out against Islamic State fighters by the United States, these were the first strikes authorized since President Barack Obama pulled back in 2011.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 182.52 points, or 1.12 percent, to 16,550.79. The S&P 500 ended up 21.84 points, or 1.14 percent, to 1,931.41. The Nasdaq Composite added 36.02 points, or 0.83 percent, to 4,370.99. According to BATS exchange data compared with the five day average of 6.5 billion about 5.5 million shares traded on all US platforms.