Investing.com– U.S. stocks rose Friday, overturning earlier weakness after signs of cooling inflation raised hopes for upcoming interest rates cuts by the Federal Reserve.
At 09:35 ET (13:35 GMT), rose 75 points, or 0.2%, climbed 7 points, or 0.1% and gained 10 points, or 0.1%.
Stable PCE boosts sentiment
Boosting sentiment Friday was the news that the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, the Fed’s preferred gauge of inflation, came in 2.7% in April, unchanged from March and thus showing no signs of accelerating.
Stripping out volatile items like food and fuel, the year-on-year matched the prior month’s mark of 2.8%, again as expected.
There was a slight variance from expectations in the month-on-month figures, with the headline release coming in at 0.3%, in line with March, while the “core” monthly figure increased by 0.2%, below the 0.3% expected.
Sentiment has been hit hard recently by increasing doubts the Federal Reserve will agree to interest rate cuts this year, especially as policymakers warned that sticky inflation will keep the central bank from loosening policy any time soon.
Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan, for example, said on Thursday she is still worried about upside risks to inflation and warned the U.S. central bank needs to stay “flexible” and keep “all options on the table” as it watches the data and determines how to respond.
That said, each of the major benchmarks are still set to register a sixth positive month in seven -.the DJIA is up 0.8% this month, the S&P 500 is higher by 4%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite has gained about 7%, on track for its best month since November 2023.
Dell slumps on weak earnings, Zscaler rises
In the corporate sector, the tail end of the first quarter earnings season has produced some volatile activoty.
Dell Technologies (NYSE:) slumped 15% after the technology group unveiled a lower-than-anticipated current-quarter earnings outlook and indicated that higher spending on building out servers to meet artificial intelligence workloads would weigh on full-year margins.
Apparel retailer Nordstrom (NYSE:) fell 3% on an underwhelming quarterly profit, while developer data platform MongoDB (NASDAQ:) plunged 23%.
On the flip side, Gap (NYSE:) surged 20% after the clothes retailer raised its annual sales forecast and its first-quarter results beat market expectations, while Zscaler (NASDAQ:) rose 15% after the cloud security firm reported strong quarterly earnings and also hiked its guidance.
Crude heading for monthly losses
Crude prices edge higher Friday, helped by the U.S. inflation data, but were still on course for monthly losses stemming from worries of weaker demand this year.
By 09:35 ET, the U.S. crude futures (WTI) traded 0.3% higher at $78.16 per barrel, while the Brent contract was 0.5% higher at $82.27 a barrel. Both benchmarks are on course to decline between 1% and 2% in May.
U.S. saw a bigger-than-expected draw last week, according to data released on Thursday, but grew 2 million barrels, more than expected. This raised concerns that demand in the world’s biggest fuel consumer was sluggish going into the travel-heavy summer season.
Additionally, weak Chinese data pointed to a slowing in growth in the world’s largest crude importer.
(Ambar Warrick contributed to this article.)
From: investing.com
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