S&P 500 Gains and Losses Today: Meta Soars as Investors Hit ‘Like’ on AI Progress [Video]

Major U.S. equities indexes pushed higher to close the shortened trading week after the Independence Day holiday.

Friday’s gains came after the June jobs report showed a cooldown in the pace of hiring and an uptick in the unemployment rate, lifting expectations that the Federal Reserve could move to cut interest rates in the coming months.

The S&P 500 added 0.5% to notch an all-time closing high for the third straight session. A jump of 0.9% lifted the Nasdaq to another record close. After trading in negative territory for much of the session, the Dow advanced in the afternoon to close 0.2% higher.

Shares of Facebook and Instagram parent Meta Platforms (META) soared 5.9%, marking Friday’s top performance in the S&P 500 and posting the stock’s highest-ever close. The gains came amid optimism that Meta’s massive investments in artificial intelligence (AI) technology could be starting to flow through into revenue gains, with analysts at Bernstein recently indicating that AI-driven algorithms are increasing the time spent …