CNBC Business News Update - Market Close: Best Week Of 2024 For Stocks, Ulta Beauty Rises Again, Big Jump For H&R Block

Episode Date: August 16, 2024

The latest in business, financial and market news and what it means for your money - reported by CNBC's Peter Schacknow.

I'm Peter Schach, now CNBC. The Dow gained for the sixth time in seven days. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq were higher for the seventh day in a row. The weekly percentage gains for the major averages were the largest since early November, and the S&P and Nasdaq are now both higher for August. Wall Street's mood has been boosted by economic data that shows the U.S. economy is holding up better than many had feared without changing the view that the Fed is ready to cut interest rates in September. Dana Peterson is chief economist at the conference board. We had many different factors all converging at once that were quite really unrelated. And we didn't have strong data suggesting that the U.S. was going into recession or

that the employment market was going to collapse. So I think that I still think the same things now that the economy, yes, it's slowing, but it's still pretty healthy. And certainly with retail sales coming in as strong as they did, consumers are still interested in buying goods and going to bars and restaurants. Ulta Beauty was near the top of today's S&P 500 leaderboard, up another 3.1 percent after yesterday's 11 percent gain. That followed the news that Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway had taken a stake in the cosmetics company. A 17 percent dividend hike and better than expected quarterly profit sent the shares of tax preparation company H&R Block up 12 percent. Applied materials fell by 2 percent. However, the stock had jumped 19 percent during a six-day win streak just ahead

of the semiconductor equipment company's quarterly earnings issued after Thursday's closing bell. Peter Schach now, CNBC.