Market Snapshot: Dow rises more than 300 points after inflation report, Nasdaq on track for best first half since 1983

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U.S. stocks were sharply higher Friday afternoon, with the Nasdaq Composite on track to close out June with its strongest first-half of a year since 1983, as investors hope the Federal Reserve might be able to back off its inflation battle more quickly than Chair Jerome Powell has suggested.

How stock indexes are trading

  • The Dow Jones Industrial Average
    DJIA,
    +0.84%

    rose nearly 330 points, or 1%, to nearly 34,453.

  • The S&P 500
    SPX,
    +1.23%

    gained almost 60 points, or 1.4%, to about 4,456.

  • The Nasdaq Composite
    COMP,
    +1.45%

    climbed 214 points, or 1.6%, to 13,805.

For the week, the Dow is on pace to rise 2.2%, the S&P 500 is on track to climb 2.5% and the Nasdaq is heading for a 2.3% gain, according to FactSet data, at last check.

What’s driving markets

The final trading day of the week, month and quarter is presenting a positive picture for U.S. stocks as the main indexes advance following the latest inflation report.

“Clearly today the market likes and is responding to the inflation data,” said Chris Fasciano, portfolio manager for Commonwealth Financial Network, in a phone interview Friday. “It continues to show softening inflation and that’s clearly what the Fed’s looking for,” he said.” I think investors are comfortable right now with a soft-landing scenario” for the economy.

On Friday, data showed U.S. inflation measured by the personal-consumption-expenditures price index eased to 3.8% in May on a 12-month basis, the slowest increase since April 2021.

The PCE price index edged up 0.1% on a month-over-month basis in May, while core prices, which exclude volatile food and energy products, increased by 0.3%. The government’s PCE inflation report was in line with economists’ expectations.

See: U.S. inflation slows, PCE shows, but price pressures still intense

The data added to an increasingly upbeat portrait of a U.S. economy, which has continued to expand despite the Fed’s aggressive tightening of monetary policy. Gross domestic product in the U.S. expanded 2% during the first quarter, much stronger than the previous 1.3% reading, data released on Thursday showed.

In other U.S. economic updates, the University of Michigan said Friday the final reading of its consumer-sentiment index for June improved to 64.4. That’s a four-month high.

Still, the PCE report showed consumer spending rose just 0.1% in May, slower than economists had anticipated.

The Federal Reserve has been raising interest rates since 2022 to cool the economy and tame inflation. Fed Chair Jerome Powell said earlier this week that he didn’t expect inflation in the U.S. to return to the central bank’s 2% target until 2025.

“Right now, the Fed’s job is not clear-cut,” said George Mateyo, the chief investment officer of Key Private Bank, in emailed commentary Friday. “While they may not be done with rake hikes, perhaps they don’t have much more work to do.”

The U.S. stock market has rallied this month, bringing the S&P 500 index’s gains so far this quarter to more than 8%, according to FactSet data, at last check. The S&P 500 has jumped around16% so far this year, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq has soared almost 32%, based on Friday afternoon trading levels.

Companies in focus

–Jamie Chisholm and Gregory Robb contributed to this report