Carmakers up on Wall Street

At midday on Friday the New York equities markets were up, ending a largely positive note. Despite troubles early in the week, several new data releases tended to calm investor concerns that interest rates will rise further in the short term. The only real threats to a pause in the interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve came with new data on Friday showing a rise in core inflation added to new home sales figures from earlier in the week that were higher than had been expected.

By mid-session, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.5 percent for the day and 1.1 percent on the week to 11,266.36. The Nasdaq Composite was also 0.5 percent higher to 2,208.95, a gain on the week of 0.7 percent. The S&P 500 was up 0.4 percent for the day to 1,278.28, 0.9 percent higher on the week.

There were two IPOs during the week, producing mixed results. MasterCard debuted on Thursday and immediately added 18 percent in its first day of trade. The credit card company lost part of those gains on Friday but was still up 16.2 percent on the week at $45.30 by midday. On the other hand, internet telephone company Vonage began trade on Wednesday and was 212.4 percent lower by mid-session on Friday at $13.36.

Automobile manufacturers had a good week. General Motors added 15.1 percent to $28.41 during the week, mainly on an upgrade to “buy” from Merrill Lynch. Ford Motor was up 4.1 percent during the week, to $7.32 even though S&P said it might issue another credit downgrade on the carmaker. In related stocks, Delphi, GM’s main parts supplier, gained 15.2 percent this week to $1.44 despite ongoing legal disputes with its unions.

Stock exchanges were down on the week. NYSE Group dropped 5.1 percent to $61.21 after making a $10.2 billion dollar bid for Euronext. Nasdaq was also down, by 3.8 percent to $31.78. Intercontinental Exchange lost 18.9 percent during the week to $56.76.

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