Wall Street's winning week accelerated Thursday following the latest signal that inflation is easing its chokehold on the economy, per the AP.
- The S&P 500 rose 37 points, or 0.8%, to 4,510, its highest close of 2023, notes CNBC.
- The Dow rose 47 points, or 0.1%, to 34,395.
- The Nasdaq rose 219 points, or 1.5%, to 14,138. (That's also its highest close of the year.)
Stocks built on gains after more data raised hopes that inflation is cooling enough to convince the Federal Reserve to end its blistering run of hikes to interest rates soon. Inflation at the wholesale level slowed more than expected in June, and prices paid by producers were just 0.1% higher during the month than a year earlier. Traders remain nearly convinced the Fed will raise the federal funds rate at its next meeting in two weeks to its highest level since 2001. But this week's inflation data has also pushed traders to build bets for that to be the final rate increase of this cycle.
Amazon, Alphabet, and Nvidia were among the strongest forces pushing up the S&P 500. Amazon gained 2.7% after a strong Prime Day; Alphabet rose 4.5% after Google said it's rolling out its AI tool called Bard; and Nvidia, which has been at the center of Wall Street's frenzy around AI, rose 4.2%. PepsiCo added 2.3% after it beat analysts' profit expectations for the spring. The earnings reporting season is just getting underway, and JPMorgan Chase will lead a barrage of banks on Friday that will tell investors how much they made during the spring.
(More
stock market stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
