SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSEArca: SPY) was set for its fourth straight week of gains and traded near an all-time high Friday after a measure of consumer sentiment came in better than expected.
The preliminary reading of the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index climbed to 83.7 from 76.4 in April, beating economists’ expectations.
The index rose to its highest level since 2007.
“Consumer sentiment rebounded in early May to the highest level in nearly six years as Americans felt better about their financial and economic prospects, particularly among upper-income households,” Reuters reports.
The S&P 500 ETF was up 16.6% year to date heading into Friday’s trading.
“Certainly economic data support the market rising, and there is still a huge element related to quantitative easing for sure,” said Randy Frederick, managing director of active trading and derivatives at Charles Schwab, in a MarketWatch report. “We may have been in a bull market even if there was no quantitative easing and interest rates were normalized, but we would have had a far worse recession than we had.”
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