Roundup: U.S. stocks rally amid Trump victory, rate hike concern

U.S. stocks posed best weekly gains of the year, with the Dow marking its best weekly performance since December 2011, as Wall Street mainly digested Tuesday's presidential election and rate hike comments from a Federal Reserve official.

For the week, all three major indices rallied, with the Dow, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq soaring 5.4 percent, 3.8 percent and 3.8 percent, respectively.

U.S. financial markets witnessed wild swings after U.S. Republican candidate Donald Trump won the country's presidential election, but then stabilized and regained momentum as Wall Street further digested information about the country's election results.

"It is not quite a mandate, not with a popular vote loss, but it is a far different outcome than was expected 12 hours ago," said Chris Low, chief economist at FTN Financial.

Financial markets around the world had been pricing in a victory for the Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton over Trump.

Dow futures plunged more than 800 points on Tuesday night as the U.S. presidential election remained much tighter than expected, with Trump showing strength in crucial battleground states.

However, U.S. stocks opened slightly lower Wednesday mornings as Wall Street shook off fears about the U.S. election results shock. At the close, all three major indices reversed early losses to post solid gains, notching a three-day winning streak.

Wall Street is benefiting from Trump's anti-regulation stance versus Clinton's. Clinton had several election measures viewed as adverse to Wall Street, such as raising capital gains tax, further regulation and a high frequency trading transaction tax, Brendan Ahern, chief investment officer of U.S. fund company Kraneshares, told Xinhua.

The market is expecting adjustments to Dodd Frank, the Volker Rule and other regulations put in place over the past eight years, he added.

Analysts believed that the increased prospect of tax cuts and a generally pro-growth set of policies from Trump, aided and abetted by the Republican clean sweep of Congress, are bullish for the stock market.

His win also puts into question the likelihood of a Federal Reserve rate hike.

Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer, a voting member of the Fed's policy-setting committee, said in prepared remarks that he expected U.S. rates to rise gradually.

He added that the U.S. central bank was close to achieving its dual mandate, according to the CNBC.

Early this month, the Fed left interest rates unchanged amid uncertainty about market reactions to the outcome of the U.S. election, but signaled that it could raise rates again as soon as December.

On the economic front, U.S. consumer sentiment rebounded in early November from a two-year low level recorded in October as consumers raised their economic expectation.

The preliminary reading of the consumer sentiment for November rose to 91.6 from 87.2 in October, said the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan index of consumer sentiment on Friday.

In the week ending Nov. 5, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 254,000, a decrease of 11,000 from the previous week's unrevised level of 265,000, the U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday.

The four-week moving average was 259,750, an increase of 1,750 from the previous week's revised average.

In corporate news, shares of Macy's soared 5.60 percent to 40.53 U.S. dollars apiece Thursday after the department store chain raised its sales outlook for the year.

Shares of J.C. Penney jumped 3.97 percent to 9.16 dollars apiece Friday after the U.S. retailer delivered mixed third-quarter results. Endit