Costco climbs after posting upbeat Q1 results

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U.S. business activity picks up in December - survey

By Caroline Valetkevitch

NEW YORK, Dec 15 (Reuters) - The S&P 500 ended a choppy session little changed on Friday but registered a seventh straight week of gains in its longest winning streak since 2017 after this week's dovish pivot by the Federal Reserve.

The Dow Jones industrial average notched a record high close for the third session in a row.

Comments Friday by Fed Bank of New York President John Williams that it was too soon to be talking about rate cuts dampened some of the day's optimism.

Also, the rate sensitive real estate and utilities sectors fell more than 1% each, giving back some of this week's gains.

Stocks rallied after the Fed in its policy statement Wednesday signaled lower borrowing costs in 2024. An index of semiconductors rose 9.1% for the week, its biggest weekly percentage gain since May.

"What I think we got this week is that (Fed Chair Jerome Powell) doesn't want to overly punish the economy with (rates) being higher for longer for no good reason," said Kim Forrest, chief investment officer at Bokeh Capital Partners in Pittsburgh.

"I don't know if we're going to get whatever is considered a Santa Claus rally, but it looks like all things being considered, we could drift higher from here."

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 56.81 points, or 0.15%, to 37,305.16, the S&P 500 lost 0.36 points, or memek 0.01%, to 4,719.19 and the Nasdaq Composite added 52.36 points, or 0.35%, to 14,813.92.

For the week, the Dow gained 2.9%, the Nasdaq climbed 2.8% and the S&P 500 added 2.5%.

The day also marked the expiry of quarterly derivatives contracts tied to stocks, index options and futures, also known as "triple witching."

The day's volume was high. Volume on U.S. exchanges was 19.76 billion shares, compared with the 11.80 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.

Shares of Costco Wholesale jumped 4.4% after the retailer topped Wall Street estimates for first-quarter results due to demand for cheaper groceries.

Earlier on Friday, a survey showed domestic business activity picked up in December amid rising orders and demand for workers, which could further help to allay fears of a sharp slowdown in economic growth in the fourth quarter.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 2.00-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.54-to-1 ratio favored decliners.

The S&P 500 posted 50 new 52-week highs and 2 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 180 new highs and 85 new lows.

(Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; additional reporting by Shristi Achar A and Johann M Cherian in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta, Maju Samuel and Aurora Ellis)