The US stock markets saw gains on Friday. As trading closed in New York, the Dow Jones was calculated at 51,655 points, marking a positive increase of 0.8 percent compared to the previous trading day. Slightly earlier, the broader S&P 500 was up by 0.6 percent, reaching approximately 7,812 points, while the technology-focused Nasdaq 100 recorded around 30,883 points, also showing a 0.5 percent gain.
Technology stocks recovered on Friday after uncertainty in the industry following a report released on Thursday regarding the sales figures of ChatGPT developer OpenAI. However, a subsequent report suggested even higher sales for OpenAI.
In related news, US President Donald Trump announced on Friday, following a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, that he would ship large volumes of diesel from Russia to help lower soaring prices, which have been heavily driven up by the ongoing conflict between the US and Israel against Iran. Crude oil experienced a slight dip. At around 10 pm German time on Friday evening, a barrel of West Coast Brent crude was priced at $104.10, which is 16 cents, or 0.2 percent, less than the close of the previous day.
In other financial movements, the European common currency was somewhat weaker on Friday evening; the Euro cost $1.1202, meaning the dollar was available for 0.8927 Euros. Conversely, the price of gold saw a significant benefit, hitting $4,195 per fine ounce in the evening (+1.6 percent), translating to a price of 120.40 Euros per gram.
