Stock Market Today: Stocks higher to close out rocky week on Wall Street

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U.S. equity futures edged higher Friday, but are still on pace for a weekly decline, as investors grapple with a sharp rise in Treasury bond yields, election uncertainty and the prospect of slower Federal Reserve rate cuts.

Stocks ended higher on Thursday, with tech stocks powered in part by the strongest single day gain for Tesla (TSLA) shares since 2005 after the carmaker topped Wall Street earnings forecasts and issued a robust production and delivery outlook.

Magnificent 7 peers Google (GOOGL) , Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN) are also slated to report September-quarter earnings next week as investors look to the market’s most-influential sector, which has lagged since late summer, to underpin the anticipated rally into the final months of the year.

“Despite Tesla’s earnings boost, uncertainty persists around broader tech performance, particularly with IBM’s slump,” Saxo Bank strategists wrote. “Implied volatility in Tesla and Nvidia remains at elevated levels above 50%, signaling potential large price moves ahead.”

Investors are also tracking the dead heat Presidential election, which is now just eleven days away, and the implication a victory for either candidate, as well as the House of Representatives and the 34 Senate seats in play, will have on the nation’s economy.

Treasury bond volatility has hit the highest levels of the year this week amid fading Fed rate bets and Presidential election uncertainty.

That, alongside messaging from Fed officials suggesting a slower pace of rate cuts as the economy continues to outperform, has trigged significant turmoil in the Treasury market and lifted benchmark 10-year note yields more than 50 basis points since late September.

The paper was last marked 2 basis points lower at 4.20% heading into the start of the New York trading session, with rate-sensitive 2-year notes inching 1 basis point higher to 4.068% following yesterday’s better-than-expected weekly jobless claims data.

Heading into the start of the trading day on Wall Street, futures contracts tied to the S&P 500 suggest a modest 17 point opening bell gain, while those tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average are priced for a 104 point move to the upside. The tech-focused Nasdaq is called 65 points higher.

Stocks on the move include Apple, which fell 0.85% following some weak iPhone 16 sales data from China, as well as Tesla, which slipped 1.45% from yesterday’s near 22% surge.

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In overseas markets, a surprisingly upbeat reading for investor sentiment in Germany, as well as a solid day of earnings on Thursday, helped the Stoxx 600 index to an early 0.11% gain, with the FTSE 100 in Britain rising 0.05%.

Overnight in Asia, the region-wide MSCI ex-Japan benchmark slipped 0.02% into the close of trading, while the Nikkei 225 fell 0.6% in Tokyo ahead of perhaps the most consequential national elections in decades slated for this Sunday.