Dow Jones Industrial Average Surges 180 Points As Apple Inc (AAPL) Shares Soar 3%

By Jessica Menton @JessicaMenton j.menton@ibtimes.com

The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared more than 180 points Friday after Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) shares rallied 3 percent, rebounding from the prior day's losses. The iPhone maker’s gains also helped the Nasdaq composite jump more than 1 percent. Reuters/Brendan McDermid

U.S. stocks rebounded Friday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average soaring more than 180 points, as shares of Apple Inc. leaped 3 percent, rebounding from the prior day’s losses. The Nasdaq composite rallied more than 1 percent, led by gains from the iPhone maker and a rally in biotechnology, following a sharp sell-off a day earlier.
Market professionals are looking ahead to Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder meeting Saturday, held in Omaha, Nebraska.
The Dow (INDEXDJX:.DJI) rallied 183.54 points, or 1.03 percent, to close at 18,024.06. The Standard & Poor's 500 (INDEXNASDAQ:.IXIC) added 22.78 points, or 1.09 percent, to end at 2,108.29. The Nasdaq composite (INDEXSP:.INX) gained
63.97 points, or 1.29 percent, to finish at 5,005.39.
For the year, the Dow has gained 197 points, or 1.1 percent and the S&P 500 index has risen 49 points, or 2.4 percent. The Nasdaq has soared 269 points, or 5.69 percent in 2015.
The blue-chip Dow leaped higher Friday, led by a 3 percent rally from Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and a 2.6 percent gain from Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC). The iPhone maker’s gains also helped boost the tech-heavy Nasdaq more than 1 percent. Shares of Apple rebounded after dropping 2.7 percent Thursday after the company issued "no comment" to reports earlier this week that a key component in its Apple Watch was found to be defective.
Apple, which has a market capitalization of $735 billion, soared to an all-time high above $134 in extended-hours trading Monday after the tech giant announced it would boost its capital return program to $200 billion and will raise its dividend 11 percent. The world's most valuable company also posted quarterly profit and revenue that surpassed Wall Street estimates.
Shares of Apple rose 3.04 percent Friday to close at $128.95. For the year, the stock has gained nearly 17 percent.
The Dow plunged nearly 200 points Thursday, as all three major U.S. indexes traded lower, led by declines in biotechnology. However, the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology exchange-traded fund (NASDAQ:IBB) gained 3 percent Friday, as shares of Gilead Sciences Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD) and Biogen Inc. (NASDAQ:BIIB) leaped 4 and 3 percent, respectively.
Shares of LinkedIn Corp. (NYSE:LNKD) continued to plunge Friday, tumbling more than 18 percent to close at $205.21, a day after the professional networking site slashed its full-year forecast, citing lower demand for advertising.
Meanwhile, Yum! Brands Inc. (NYSE:YUM), which owns KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, saw its shares jump nearly 7 percent Friday to close at $91.90 after billionaire investor Daniel Loeb's Third Point hedge fund took a “significant” stake in the world's second-largest quick-service restaurant company.
Data on Friday showed consumer sentiment at jumped to its second-highest level since 2007 in April, as the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment survey showed a final reading of 95.9 last month, up from 93.0 in March.
Separately, construction spending in March declined by 0.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $967 billion, the U.S. Commerce Department reported Friday.
However, the pace of U.S. manufacturing growth remained at its slowest in almost two years last month, as April's manufacturing ISM (Institute for Supply Management) index missed forecasts, coming in at 51.5, unchanged from the previous month. A reading above 50 indicates expansion in the manufacturing sector.