Morning Report 19 Oct 20: US sharemarkets were mixed on Friday

Shares in Pfizer rose 3.3% after it said it could seek authorisation for a vaccine it is working on in November. There was continued wrangling over a new pandemic relief package. Economic data was mixed. This week 49 of the companies in the S&P 500 have reported earnings. Of those, 86% beat expectations, according to Refinitiv. The Dow Jones index rose by 112 points or 0.4%. The S&P500 index edged 0.5 points higher or less than 0.1%, But the Nasdaq index was down by 42 points or 0.4%. Over the week, the Dow rose by 0.1%; S&P 500 rose 0.2%; and Nasdaq rose 0.8%.

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