US close: Boston Fed president doesn't rule out more QE, stocks rise

US stocks registered a large bounce on the last day of the week following the sharp falls observed throughout the rest of the week, following soothing words from policymakers around the world.

Chief amongst those was St.Louis Fed president James Bullard, on Thursday, followed by Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane on Friday. In parallel, reports in the early afternoon referenced the possibility that Chinese authorities might move to inject further liquidity into the country’s 20 largest lenders.

Backing them up, on Friday the president of the Federal Reserve bank of Boston, Eric Rosengren, told CNBC he does not expect the US economy to need another round of quantitative easing, although he does not dismiss that possibility outright.

The Dow Jones Industrials thus managed to break a six session losing streak, finishing the day higher by 1.63% or 263 points higher to 16,380 points. The S&P 500 registered similar gains, rising by 1.3% or 24 points to hit the 1,887 point mark.

Also helping sentiment along were better than expected quarterly results out of the likes of several large cap issues, including General Electric, Honeywell and Morgan Stanley.

The Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.96% to 4,258, lagging its peers. Weighing on the tech-heavy index was Google, whose stock came off 2.6% following weaker than expected quarterly results out on Thursday evening.

Meantime, and in economic news, a report showed US housing starts rose by 6.3% month-on-month in September following a 12.8% drop a month earlier.

Analysts had pencilled in a 5.4% increase.

The University of Michigan’s consumer confidence index rose to 86.4 in October, higher than the 84 consensus forecast and in line with the previous month’s reading.

Morgan Stanley, Google

Morgan Stanley gained after reporting third quarter earnings the beat market estimates.

Google ended in the red as the search engine fell short of profit and revenue estimates for the third quarter.

GE rallied after the company’s third-quarter profit figures surpassed analysts’ forecasts on the back of cost cutting.

From a sector standpoint the best performance was seen in the following industrial groups: Aluminum (6.99%), Home construction (3.95%) and Hotels (3.11%).

Slight gain in oil futures

Front month West Texas crude futures edged higher by 0.27% to $82.92 per barrel on the NYMEX. After the close of trading the CME will increase the margins required to operate in all liquid oils.

10-year US Treasury yields moved higher by four basis points to 2.19%.