Some mostly upbeat economic data helped US equity markets post modest gains last Friday as investors ignored talk of further upheavals in the Trump administration - Dow up +73-points or +0.29%. The broader S&P500 rose +0.17% to break a four session losing streak, with nine of the eleven primary sectors ending higher (the technology and consumer discretionary sectors the only laggards). The technology-centric NASDAQ flat, with Google-parent Alphabet down -1.4% and Amazon --0.7%. Last Friday's session marked quadruple-witching day - the simultaneous expiration of stock-index futures, stock-index options, single-stock futures and stock options - and had nvestors braced for higher volatility, although the price action proved relatively subdued. However, trading volume was heavy. Total composite volume was 9.253B shares, the biggest volume day since 9 February and the fifth highest volume day of 2018. In stock-specific news, Johnson and Johnson rose +0.5% after receiving a US$2.1B offer from Platinum Equity to acquire its blood-glucose monitoring business. Looking ahead this week and corporate earnings releases are expected from Oracle tonight AEDT, FedEx on Tuesday (20 March), General Mills on Wednesday (21 March) and Nike on Thursday (22 March). For the week, the Dow fell -1.5%, S&P500 -1.2%, and the Nasdaq declined -1.0%.
